Custora (YC W11) Helps Online Businesses Improve Customer Retention

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/27/custora-helps-online-businesses-improve-customer-retention/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=FeedBurner

by pospischil • 15 years ago

141 18 15 years ago

techcrunch.com

reason2• 15 years ago

Your sign up page isn't working!

pospischil4• 15 years ago

Sorry about that! It's working for us, what browser are you using? You can reach me directly at jon [at] custora dot com

reason2• 15 years ago

Working now! Sorry for the scare.

dmix2• 15 years ago

I love how the tour section segments to provide more relevant content.

Very well designed landing page. The only thing missing is info about the team behind it.

cpierson4• 15 years ago

Thanks for the kind words - and for the suggestion for more info on the team. The co-founders are computer science guys, and we also studied probability modeling over at Wharton. Excited to bring these tools to market!

dmix2• 15 years ago

You should keep a dev blog. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in the architecture/algorithms running behind the scenes; plus it would bring some links back to your site.

il• 15 years ago

Congrats on the launch- this looks like a fantastic product. For a long time now I've been preaching that CLV is the most important thing a SaaS startup needs to optimize for, so it's great to see technology emerge to meet that need.

Using data to extract more revenue from existing customers without spending more on marketing is something like the holy grail for businesses. I'm sure Custora will do incredibly well as long as they can demonstrate that using their product leads to clear increase in ROI; I look forward to seeing some case studies.

It's nice to see the YC investment philosophy start expanding more to unsexy but very profitable enterprise/B2B/under the hood type startups. I'm wondering if they compared the track record(revenue and exits) of their past consumer-focused vs business-focused startups and made a conscious decision to adjust the types of startups they fund accordingly.

pospischil4• 15 years ago

Thanks! It's great to hear other people share our view on the space. We're really excited to be bringing the tools to a wide audience.

rksprst• 15 years ago

Good idea, but I'd like to have some more info about what you actually do and how you do it (and what information we need to provide for you). Also, how secure are you? How do you secure my information, where do you store it? Will you use my data for aggregated reports?

Some of the data I want is also very specific to my industry, it would be nice to see some of that industry jargon on your site to know that you get what I want.

There's also lots of competing business intelligence software for various niches, are you trying to be one tool for everyone? Personally, I'd rather use a tool specific to my industry/niche.

cpierson4• 15 years ago

Thanks for the feedback - it's helpful to hear reactions about what's most important to add next the site.

We're learning that there are large aspects of the customer retention challenge that are consistent across many types of businesses (e.g. for a retailer, how can I tell if my customer is gone for good or just idle?). Of course, some aspects are unique for each vertical. In those cases, we're exploring how we can supplement existing efforts - some of our beta clients have piped results from our analysis into other tools.

InfinityX0• 15 years ago

Your header font is kind grainy to me on Chrome - where it says "Find and keep valuable customers". I like the design but that could be improved, IMO.

pospischil4• 15 years ago

Thanks for the feedback - we'll take a closer look on different versions of chrome.

b0b0b0b• 15 years ago

I'm interested in learning more about how customers are modelled. Transaction history, # support cases, usage patterns; these will be more informative than acquisition channel. But then there's the matter of getting data into and out of Custora. Looks really cool, guys.

pospischil4• 15 years ago

Thanks!

Our models are calibrated first using transaction data, then by layering in other types of usage.

Acquisition channel is then looked at to see which sources drove the customers with the highest lifetime values.

As for data in/out: we integrate directly with a number of recurring billing and shopping cart platforms or we can take simple log file inputs.

orky56• 15 years ago

Very cool. Seems more like extracting value from the right customers rather than the way you currently have it which seems kind of negative: Focus on a few and forget about the rest.

Some other feedback: 1. I clicked "Tour" and got stuck since I'm not either. No way to get out except the Back button. 2. Would love some screenshots or examples of the type of data you will be presenting. 3. Love the design! Is it too retro-looking for the old guard of retail/e-commerce?

melissamiranda• 15 years ago

Great use of color and illustration to keep it classy yet inviting. Copy is spot on, too. Congrats.

cpierson4• 15 years ago

Thanks for the kind words!

Custora (YC W11) Helps Online Businesses Improve Customer Retention

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