Jess Riegel for Participant, Inc
Hi all, welcome to our 7th Monthly Investor Update of 2022! We appreciate your support. Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read and provide thoughts, suggestions & feedback.
🔗 Want to read this update on web instead of email? Head here >>
Participant Inc is a B2B software company that helps leaders deliver on rising demands for social purpose. Global spend on "impact tech" is increasing 8% YoY as customer, employee & investor expectations have shifted and positive impact becomes a clear competitive advantage. After launching our first, voting-focused product with 20K users, we've relaunched as a B2B SaaS solution that uses behavioral science to help clients run data-driven impact initiatives and measure social purpose as a KPI.
- See how Motivote (our first product) works here - Product Feature Walkthrough (Deck)
- Learn about the "Democracy" Market (our first vertical) - Research Brief (in Notion)
Friendly reminder that you have access to our evergreen resource bank (in Notion) which includes the latest in ecosystem news, team & product release updates, blurbs for warm intros, and more. Access the resource bank here >>
With the Midterms just around the corner, we're building out our Prize Store. This is a low-lift, high-impact way for brands to support democracy and align themselves with a positive cause. Can you think of 3-5 companies that you work with that could be intros for us and make a connection?
How It Works:
- Brands add gift cards, discount codes, merch and other rewards that Motivote users can win using points they've earned for completing voting readiness actions and inviting new members.
- This year we have expanded our partnerships to employers ("civic engagement-as-a-benefit") in addition to colleges and nonprofits, with an expected reach of ~100k users.
- Brands provide a digital code and image, then we do all of the heavy lifting -- getting the prizes loaded into Motivote and distributing them to winners.
FAQs:
What types of companies is this good for?
- Consumer-facing/product company that can provide discount codes, gift cars, merch, etc
- Can be any stage, as there is no cost to participate or min. value/volume of items
- Have an e-commerce experience or can provide a digital code to be redeemed online
Why would a company participate?
- This is a great way to get in front of new potential customers who may not have heard of them before and drive sales through discount codes and gift cards etc.
- Especially for brands that are targeting consumers who care about social purpose, we have partnerships with organizations like REI Co-op with 20M values-driven members.
- Stakeholders want this: 81% of consumers are more likely to buy a from companies that stand up for democracy. Partnering with Motivote is an actionable, measurable way to deliver on this demand.
Sharable Content:
- "We’re building a civic engagement program. Instead of just using email or social media for distribution, this could be an opportunity to broaden infrastructure without building it ourselves." - Consultant to Nonprofit Business Association with 2K members
- 🎉 After launching in mid-July with Eileen Fisher to very positive feedback, we signed two additional corporate partners: REI and Aflac. Both will be launching in the late summer to their networks.
- 🔏 We signed 4 new contracts last month, exceeding our annual goal for new clients originating through outbound outreach.
- 🪷 Patience pays off: One new contract with an organization we first spoke with in 2019 who reached back out via our website to reconnect.
- 📈 Over the past 3 months, we've added over 100 new opportunities to our pipeline, which has doubled in volume since the beginning of this year.
- 📧 High response rates to our email outreach indicate our value proposition is resonating with buyers - we're consistently seeing a 30% response rate and 11% conversion to 1st Meeting.
- 🎙️ We presented at internal meetings for decision-makers at two public university systems exploring cross-campus engagements: University of Michigan and CUNY.
- 🤓 We released a robust set of Partner Success Resources to guide new clients through onboarding and set them up for success. Materials range from "Talking about Motivote" guides to boilerplate emails to editable social media templates. Check it out here >>
- 50% increase in MRR over last month (to ~$17K)
- 40% increase in contracts signed (14 total)
- 35% increase in sales meetings held (42 in July)
- 11% increase in pipeline value since end Q1 (to ~$2.2M)
We are continuing to grow our opportunity pipeline and convert opportunities into new contracts. We are mainly using cold outreach via personalized email to gauge initial interest and set up intro phone calls, then schedule 1-3 follow-up calls to get to a close.
Growing Revenue:
- In July, we signed 4 new contracts ranging in length from 6 to 36 months.
- MRR from new contracts averages out to addt'l ~$6K per month.
- On track to surpass $20K in MRR by next month and $30K by EOQ.
Building Pipeline:
- With a goal of doubling our pipeline size this year, we've achieved:
- Outreach to ~1100 new prospects to date (since beginning of 2022)
- 30% response-to-cold-email rate
- 11% conversion-to-1st-meeting rate
- In July, we held 42 sales meetings, breaking down to 60% 1st and 40% demos/follow-up's
Increasing Inbounds:
- Coming into 2022, we set a goal of increasing opportunities in our pipeline that come through inbounds and referrals.
- While the majority of our pipeline and won contracts come from outbound, where we are spending most of our energy, we are making progress on other sources. Of opportunities added in 2022, 30% are now from sources inbounds, referrals, and other warm channels.
Actions: This current phase of our Product Roadmap is focused on making actions more intuitive to navigate. With Dynamic Countdowns for action deadlines, the color of the Action Countdown will change based on how soon the deadline is coming up to indicate urgency.
Data & Privacy: As we expand our work with enterprise clients, we're expanding controls over what data is surfaced to others in-platform. We recently added a configuration to hide individual data from Admins, enabling them to see only aggregate-level, anonymized engagement metrics. Also adding ability for users to "opt out" of being displayed on public leaderboards.
Integrations: We're in the final stages of testing with our new SSO (single-sign-on) implementation. Originally developed for a specific client use-case, we can now implement this in a turnkey manner for future enterprise clients. With this option, users can sign into Motivote with existing institutional credentials in the same way they can use a Google or Facebook login.
- Business Leaders Need to Speak Up For Democracy -The Financial Times
- Business and the Future of Democracy - Public Private Partnerships
- Campaigns may have lost their most effective—and annoying—outreach tool - Vox
- More than 8 Million Youth Are Newly Eligible Voters in 2022 - CIRCLE