2022 in one word: bumpy
looking back at last year, there was a lot that went right. but there was also much that didn’t. since numbers have the habit of hiding the juicy details, let’s dive in deeper.
while the rollercoaster we rode seemed predictable for a young company from the outside, riding it in 5th gear was a whole different experience. but just like my co-founder’s favourite quote ‘a smooth sea never makes a great sailor’ says, we wouldn't have had it any other way.
we did okay in terms of numbers. we onboarded close to 8000 new members in 2022 (+146% from 2021), our revenue stood at ~rs 6cr (+110% from 2021) and we closed the year with 10,000 active members (+211% from 2021).
but numbers have the habit of hiding the juicy details, so let’s dive in deeper:
what went well
we took major strides with our tech and product. ragini and i both come from business backgrounds, so tech & product didn't come naturally to us. but having been at it for the last 2+ years and with adding the right folks to the team, we’ve gotten better.
we released a new app, a new member website, upgraded almost all features, and released new ones. in 2023, we intend to push the bar (much) higher.our members loved our events and experiences. we pushed ourselves to think bigger in 2022, after having hosted a range of smaller events. we hosted our flagship offline event ‘the leap (af)fair’ with 500+ women in delhi ncr, and it’s safe to say it was a massive hit. just one week after, 700+ women across delhi, bengaluru and mumbai ran together in the first ever ‘run like a woman’. and needless to say, thousands of women had their dream come true at indra nooyi’s session last september.
we raised new funds. while to most people this is a significant milestone, we don’t celebrate it too much. we’ve always been a revenue-first company and our focus on maximising revenue (along with the impact) is what keeps us going. in 2.5 years, we’ve hit over 10cr, and we’re targeting 100cr in annual revenue over the next 3 years. our goals are not so much about ‘raising the next round’ but more about hitting revenue targets. that said, we’re thankful to our investors for their continued support and are proud to have a cap table with over 50% women, many of whom are our early users.
we tested our thesis on l&d. we’re bullish on learning and development on our platform as our users want to invest in their growth and are looking for ways to upskill. they have the purchasing power; and creators get to work with a curated audience without having to spend to sell seats. we sold 2,076 (i.e. 18.47% of our then member base) paid slots, at an aov of rs 650 where we made a decent % as commission. we are well-positioned to become a big marketplace for courses and workshops and we’re confident that this will scale beautifully as our total member base grows.
referrals. a big % of memberships are via referrals, so scaling this funnel is a no-brainer. we ran a campaign in september where we invited our members to refer their friends and win prizes. In less than 7 days, 213 members referred and 387 new members joined us. 3 members won the dyson air wrap, 5 won marshall speakers and 183 more won other cool goodies. ladies, keep your eyes and ears open for the next one 👀
additionally, here’s an honorary mention for the 60 men who cheered for us and collectively gifted 200+ memberships to their partners, friends, colleagues, and family members in a separate campaign.high engagement on the platform. using leap.club to ‘network’ is truly standing out. in the last 3 months, we’ve had: 2783 posts on our feed, 1,37,705 1:1 connections, 190 active groups, and 30 offline events.
our meme channel on slack. one that deserves a real mention; safe to say that our team pushed the boundaries and crossed all limits. don’t miss these masterpieces:
what we need to do better
the pace at which we added new members did not match our goals. we aggressively hired freshers for the role but discovered that we could not train them well; folks with more experience were able to understand and communicate our value proposition better. we rebooted the vertical in the latter half of the year and downsized our sales team. this was tough personally and professionally and set us back a few steps. our best month was october 2022 when we onboarded 957 members, and our immediate goal is to scale this to 2000 per month. over the year, we saw good growth in auto/unassisted sales and as our brand becomes stronger, this funnel will also scale faster. slowly and then suddenly :)
renewals – our retention rate oscillated between 65% in good months to 40% in bad months. we want this to be at 75% and want leap.club to be a lifelong network which helps users connect with the right people, upskill via courses, workshops, and (very soon) discover the best companies to work at and apply for jobs. one big piece of feedback that we heard often from members was around the cost for renewals. we’ve acted on this, and have now slashed membership renewal pricing from rs 6000/year to rs 1000/year. so if you’re an existing member, renewing your membership now costs you as much as 3 coffees ☕
we send an nps survey to our members every quarter and it’s always a goldmine to understand them better. this time, feedback revolved around: a) better onboarding for new members, b) moderating the content (spam) on the app, c) the pricing of our events. members, thank you for your time, honesty and for always building with us. we promise to work hard and keep you at the heart of everything we do, and we’ve already taken measures to solve these.
the table – a project very close to our hearts where we wanted to help accelerate seed funding for women-led businesses via our network of investors and founders. we launched a syndicate and many top backers came forward but we couldn’t get it up and running to make it meaningful. we hope to refocus on this in 2023.
coming up: we’re very excited to be launching ‘jobs’ by leap.club
the usp of leap.club is our curated network of verified members, who organisations want to target for hiring + employer branding. there’s already a lot of hiring that happens on our platform via member posts and reach outs, and we’re working towards launching a full suite of solutions for members and recruiters in early 2023.
here’s why we think we will win:
100+ top companies (swiggy, teach for india, heads up for tails, insider and many more) have already signed up for the beta launch and we can't wait for our members to make big and meaningful career moves via leap.club.
$$ – runway, fundraise
the new fundraise of $1m gives us a comfortable financial runway of ~24-30 months. we’ve raised a total of $2.2 mil to date, but our focus on being a profitable, revenue-driven business remains.
the ‘opportunity runway’ is equally important for us. what does this mean? we have a finite time to get network effects going so we need to onboard faster, make our product better faster, and get members to make full use of our platform, so 2023 needs to be massive for us.
our goals for 2023 – simple and twofold:
30,000 members
18 cr in revenue, primarily from subscriptions
we’re ready to brave through the bumps and ride the rollercoaster again in 2023. in 6th gear.
as the leap.club team always says - lfg 🏃♀️ 🏃♂️
— anand, ragini and your friends at leap.club