Scaling outside Canada

A story about my experience

How can you grow?

• New Business Model

• New Markets

• New Segments

• Acquisition

Lessons

1. One market first

2. Enough Funding

3. Be Local

©2015 HomeStars Inc.

Pain Points for Contractors & Homeowners

What Do We Solve?

Homeowners

• Validating the reputation of contractors is very difficult

• Cost of failure is high

• Projects are unique and range from leaky faucets to complete rebuilds

Contractors

• Effectiveness of traditional media is diminishing

• Off-line word-of-mouth has limited range

• Limited time and resources

6

Building leadership: Focus and rich UGC

©2015 HomeStars Inc.8

Debt VC

Break-even

Angels

2007, 2009, 2012

2006

2014

My story

Scale Up Plan & Product Road Map

1.  Dot Com: Build Toronto & Boston. Redirect traffic from .ca to .com (Oct 12)

2. Go Wide: Canada and US rollout with v1.0

functionality (Jan 1 ‘08)

3. Go Deep: Functionality to enhance user stickiness (Mar 1 ’08)

Ran out of money

Product: Tried to build too much

Marketing & Sales : Not enough seasoned people on the ground.

Didn’t get TRACTION

FAIL

“ There is only one metric that matters — TRACTION.

Traction is the rate at which you capture monetizable value from customers.

Don’t ask people what they think of your idea. Only customers matter.

Don’t ask customers what they think of your idea. Measure what they do.”

Lesson # 3 - Be LOCAL.

Your positioning, and have a dedicated team on the

ground.

Lesson # 2 - Have enough FUNDS, if the

initial plan doesn’t work.

Lesson # 1 - Build ONE MARKET first.

Get the fly wheel turning.

©2015 HomeStars Inc.19

What can we be the best in the world (Canada) at?

Good to Great: hedgehog concept

Connecting homeowners to the best contractors through our rapidly growing, trustworthy and authentic content.  

What do we care deeply and passionately about?

Helping homeowners make informed decisions, in order to have the best home improvement experience.

What drives our economic engine?

LifeTime Value of a Customer - the projected revenue they will generate Formula looks at ACV (annual contract value), COA (cost of acquisition) and Churn on the denominator.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

“One in a row doesn't count; two points make a line;

three points make a trend.”

Thank you !