Summer 2024 Investor Update
Team Letter | July 16, 2024
July 16, 2024
Hello Alpaca Team!
Today’s Team Letter is our Summer 2024 Investor Update. I love bringing you these updates so that you can see the types of questions we’re answering for our partners and investors, and the things that are top of mind for me. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Note: I remove specific numbers from our Team Letters for publication. If you want to know them, I’m happy to share them with you personally. Just DM me.
Hello Alpaca Investors!
I hope you’re having an absolutely wonderful summer! As you know, August is Alpaca’s Super Bowl – it’s Back to School time! We have a LOT of amazing end-of-summer updates to share. Buckle Up!
Summary
What’s Great
35 new schools and district customers in 19 states and 4 countries launching this fall!
$XX,000 in added ARR this year (60% in software)
$XXXK in pipeline with 65 active deals
Demand gen engine of high-quality principal resources producing unprecedented traffic, conversion, and meetings booked
Coverage on top educator podcast Cult of Pedagogy
Full Alpaca Pulse survey software launched and rolling out with 30+ new customers
Partnership with 10-district provider in Oregon to survey 30K+ substitute teachers per year
2 new team members: software engineer and operations manager
$1.1M raised in seed round with $900K to go!
What’s Challenging
ACV a little lower than we want, so we’ve added 35 customers but not quite hitting our goal MRR. Many of these customers are single schools in larger districts, so there’s an opportunity to capture those.
We sold a lot of customers on our software, Alpaca Pulse, before we officially launched the product. Now, customer onboarding and early delivery of value is KEY to delivering on the promise.
Balancing fundraising and selling will be a key challenge this fall.
Sales
Sales is HEATING UP at Alpaca! For this year’s Back to School season, Alpaca is onboarding 35 new schools and districts in 19 states and 4 countries, and counting! We’ve never seen this much growth of new customers!
A few quick stats to show the growth this year:
Alpaca has added $XX,XXX ARR in 2024
We’re building more pipeline: We ended Q2 with $XXXK in pipeline. Since July 1, we’ve doubled that.
We’re booking more meetings than ever. In Q2, we booked 26 meetings. Since the beginning of Q3, we’ve booked 32.
We’re booking more NEW customers. In Q2, Alpaca added 13 new customers. In Q3 so far, Alpaca has added 21 new customers, half way through the quarter.
We’re selling more software. 60% of Closed Won revenue in Q2 and Q3 is from Alpaca Pulse (software), with 40% from Alpaca Packs.
We’re selling a lot of single schools. ACV is a little lower than I’d like. This is based on the fact that we’re selling a lot of single-school contracts (as opposed to district-level).
Marketing
Events
The name of the game in Q3 is EVENTS. Alpaca has sponsored and attended 6 events since the beginning of the quarter, yielding hundreds of new leads and more than 30 deals in pipeline, and 8 new customers so far.
Thought Leadership
We are seeing excellent traction and increased interest from principals and superintendents stemming from my appearance on the very popular Cult of Pedagogy Podcast this summer, which reaches more than 16,000 listeners. Here’s the write-up and the episode if you’d like to check it out!
In July, I spoke on stage at the FACTS Elevate Conference in Atlanta, and in October, I will be speaking at EdTech Week in New York City!
Alpaca has also submitted a session for SXSW EDU, with an absolutely awesome group of collaborators, including artist Mary Zicafoose, the University of Texas Design School chair, and several educators.
Demand Gen - Alpaca Resources
Alpaca’s demand gen marketing strategy – focused on delivering high-value teacher support resources to principals and school leaders (in exchange for an email and some engagement) has really started to yield big opportunities. Take a look at how our resource downloads are growing:
Product
Alpaca Pulse
We are SO proud to launch the full version of Alpaca Pulse just in time for Back to School!
Our software team – led by Maci McWilliams – have built a first version of a unique teacher wellbeing survey tool that I am so excited to share with you.
Now out of beta and part of our beautiful new survey and dashboard platform, Alpaca Pulse is now onboarding 32+ new customers, who will use Pulse to survey thousands of teachers every month.
Ready to check it out?! Here is our customer onboarding video, a fun how-to video for teachers, and a quick overview of how our surveys and packs work together. And hey – if you know any principals, school district folks, or potential investors you’d like to share it with, we’d be super grateful!
Alpaca Packs
Not to be outdone by our software product, Alpaca Packs also enjoyed a record month in August, with more than 4,100 back to school packs delivered to teachers in 18 states.
Team
This summer, Alpaca welcomed two new team members!
Maci McWilliams is leading our software engineering effort and has already built and launched the first version of Alpaca Pulse.
Our new operations manager, Lila Padios, joins us to support Customer Experience and operations, and is building new systems for pack fulfillment that will continue to drive efficiency while providing our packs as a delightful recognition program to schools.
We took both new team members to conferences their first week of work, giving them a crash course in demos and product pitches! They did AWESOME.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the extraordinary leadership that Kimberly Bailey is showing in growing leaders in our company, while delivering an impressive brand, high quality content, and opportunity after opportunity to help our company shine.
Fundraising
This summer, Alpaca paused our fundraising effort for the summer, in order to focus on selling new schools and districts during the highest buying season for our market, and to focus on hiring our software team and launching our new product.
We’re glad we did – we’re coming into the Fall with more customers, revenue, and product than we’ve ever had, and we feel extremely confident in the signals we’re getting from the market that Alpaca is a solution schools and districts are excited to buy!
We’ve locked into a repeatable revenue model through our marketing focus and sales process, and I can’t wait to go back out to the fundraising effort in September.
We are seeking $900K more in funding to close out our round, and will be relaunching the fundraising effort on September 1, with the current deal terms (but more revenue and customers!). If you’ve got someone we should talk to, let me know. I’m ready!
Alright, that’s enough updates for anyone! Please reach out with questions or ideas – we’re listening and we’re SO grateful for your partnership!
Best,
Karen