A look ahead at February 2024
Team Letter | February 5, 2024
Note: I omit the exact revenue numbers from the publicly published version of Team Letter. If you’d like to see them, I’m happy to share! Please DM me for the details.
February 5, 2024
Good morning, Alpaca and Happy February!
Every month in this company I look back and marvel at all of the work that happened in our company in such a short period of time. January was no exception. In case you’re still whirling from it all, here are a few BIG things that happened this month:
We sent out 2,000+ stunningly beautiful, intentional, delightful packs and resources around the topic of goal setting for the new year. Our START - STOP - CONTINUE guide was a huge hit with principals, and our packs hit home with teachers.
We added $X,XXX in MRR with the sale of a pilot of packs and surveys to University of Nebraska at Lincoln’s College of education, supporting student teachers for the first time ever.
We introduced ourselves to two NEW customers in January - Council Bluffs Community Schools and UNL College of Education, and within weeks got a request for a proposal to expand Council Bluffs to their full district.
We built out the wireframes and plans for Alpaca Pulse (are we calling it that?!), our pulse survey platform.
We spoke at 1M Cups and Millwork Conversations to amazing, supportive crowds
We hosted our first ever Thank A Thon and generated 1,500+ thank you notes in a single day, as well as gaining new friends and supporters.
We introduced ourselves to hundreds of new schools and districts at the Minnesota School Board Association conference, braving some serious weather for the cause!
We hosted a delightful team All Hands and Holiday Party, even if the snow days made those happen a week apart.
We pitched our company to 4 new investors and have interest from several more – coming fast and furious in February!
Y’all, I am PROUD of us. And also: we have big things to do in February! I’m keeping all of our company goals below to remind us (feel free to reference them any time!), but this month, we are focusing hard on our revenue engine and our funnel strategy. We spent some big time last week making a clear plan for how our ACTIONS can create our OUTCOMES, and now it’s time to get great at our actions. Because we can only control one of those things: our ACTIONS.
With so many of us heading to events and out on sales meetings in the coming months, I want to make sure that those of us on the road have sales skills, confidence, and a pitch (with a great offering!) that is concise, compelling, and clear. (That alliteration is for you, Kimberly Bailey!) So we are going to be running some sales training with our marketing and customer success teams over the course of the next few weeks as we ready ourselves for our February and March conferences. We’ll be learning how to concisely pitch the company’s value (now with new products!), demo our product, do successful follow-ups, and most importantly… CLOSE DEALS!
At my last couple of companies, I had a mantra that I repeated often: revenue is everyone’s job. Revenue is the lifeblood of what we do, and it is the fastest and easiest way for us to control our own destiny. Want to hire more people? We need revenue. Want to support more teachers with incredible packs? That requires revenue. Want to get some additional office space one day? We need revenue. Want to go on awesome retreats and continue to grow as a team? You guessed it – revenue!
Revenue isn’t everything for a company, but it enables nearly everything we dream of doing. And there is no better way to help us raise our next round of funding than to show investors a company that is GROWING our revenue month after month.
Here are our specific sales goals for February:
20 Booked Meetings
10 Proposals Delivered
5+ new customers in some way
$X,XXX in MRR
This will take some BIG work, y’all!! But I really think we can do this. Let’s focus on our actions. Let’s hold each other accountable. And let’s win this one!
ALL IN?
Let’s go!
KB
2024 Goals
1: Professional product
Build, launch, and sell to 200+ schools a comprehensive teacher support system that includes packs, pulse surveys, and actionable insights for school leaders.
2: Repeatable revenue
Alpaca has the opportunity to capture a growing market of school district HR teams seeking better solutions for teacher retention.
Alpaca Pack Growth
13 districts and 50 schools added
EOY 2024: $X_M in ARR
Alpaca Pulse Growth
50 customers added in 2024
EOY 2024: $XXXK ARR
3: Full Funnel
Repeatable revenue is tied closely to having a strong funnel, focused on driving sales meetings. We’ll hit the numbers this year by:
Focus on Events to drive leads
Nurture leads through newsletter, resources & Email
Develop 2 partnerships that grow the funnel faster.
4: All-In Alpaca
We will grow our team with intention, ambition, and a lot of Mariah Carey. Here’s how we’ll cultivate the region’s best start-up team:
Alpaca Internship to fuel operations and grow talent.
Management at Alpaca, following our key drivers
Create complete onboarding program.
Benefits at Alpaca in 2024
I had so much fun celebrating the year and your individual contributions and talents at All Hands. Thank you for being amazing!!
Onward to a BIG BIG 2024, y’all!!!
Karen