✈️ How to Keep Score (For Your Business) 📊

Welcome to First Class Founders, your favorite destination to learn the best growth tactics for founders & creators one week at a time.

Here's what we've got for you on today's flight:

• 🔁 Using Feedback Loops Effectively

• 💯 Net Promoter Score Explained (NPS)

• 🗯 Why Unsolicited Feedback Is Valuable

• 💲 Knowing What Levers to Pull as an Founder

• 💪🏼 Similarities: Elite Athletes vs. Top Entrepreneurs

Stow away your belongs — we're clear for take-off!

✈️ Episode Itinerary

Imagine training alongside elite NFL athletes such as LaDainian Tomlinson and Drew Brees during their prime years when they were breaking all sorts of NFL records.

Then, starting a podcast that eventually led to landing a job in... Venture Capital.

That's exactly what Justin Gordon did.

Justin went from the world of personal fitness to working with an amazing community of entrepreneurs and founders as the Director of Marketing and Communication at Vitalize VC.

He's also the creator of a popular podcast and newsletter called Just Go Grind.

I'm so excited to share this week's episode highlighting Justin's unconventional path.

Grab your headphones because this is a story you don't want to miss.

From Training NFL Pros to Joining a Venture Capital Firm: Justin Gordon's Incredible Journey

Inside today's episode, you'll learn:

• Training Elite NFL Athletes Like Drew Brees & LaDainian Tomlinson (3:51)

• Launching a Personal Fitness Business (5:25)

• Joining an E-Commerce Company (6:24)

• Why Justin Got His MBA in California (7:02)

• How Justin Started His Podcast (7:42)

• How Justin Got His VC Job Through His Podcast (8:16)

• Two Types of Personal Trainers (9:18)

• Similarities Between Elite Athletes & Top Entrepreneurs (13:05)

• Mailchimp Founder, Ben Chestnut (14:47)

• Small Businesses vs. VC-Backed Companies (15:14)

• When Fundraising, Narrative Is Just As Important As Traction (16:28)

• How to Navigate Silicon Valley Bank Fiasco (22:05)

• Fundraising During Market Turmoil (23:11)

• Gobble Founder, Ooshma Garg (24:04)

• Knowing What Levers to Pull as an Entrepreneur (26:10)

• Making Game Time Adjustments on the Field (27:57)

• Calendly Founder, Tope Awotona (30:25)

• Paul Graham, Founder at Y Combinator: Relentlessly Resourceful (31:10)

🥨 Growth Snack of the Week:

In-flight service time! Here, I share bite-sized growth snacks (read: hacks) building my audience for First Class Founders. 

Snacks are meant to be tried and shared. If you do try them, please tag me on Twitter and let me know what you think!

Using Feedback Loops Effectively:

Gather feedback. How many times have you heard this?

But the truth is, most people suck at it.

Today's episode with Justin Gordon talks about keeping score, so I thought it's the perfect opportunity to talk about... Net Promoter Score (NPS).

NPS, what the heck?

Don't worry, I'll explain what it is and how YOU can use it in your own business.

But first, let's take a step back and talk about feedback.

There are two types of feedback: unsolicited & solicited.

It's important to know WHY these are different.

Unsolicited Feedback:

Unsolicited feedback happens for 3 reasons:

• Internet trolls

• Something is broken

• Someone really likes your stuff

Internet trolls are funny little creatures. They provide no value to you, but it does provide one important signal: your point of view is "spiky."

Let me ask you something: What's worse than being a content creator?

Being a commoditized content creator. Your content is just like everyone else's.

You need to stand for something. You need a spiky point of view.

And when these strange little troll creatures come out from hiding and find you, that's a good thing. Embrace them. Give them a hug.

It's a sign that you have a unique angle.

The next one is straight forward. Your website is broken, your link doesn't work, your product doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Solution? Simple. Just fix the darn thing.

Last but not least, someone really likes your stuff.

Remember passing notes behind your teacher's back in middle school?

Yeah, someone has a crush on you. Or, more specifically, your content.

This is the good stuff. Cherish each note you get.

Heck, print them out and display them proudly on your desk.

These are simple reminders that keep you going, so treasure them.

Don't forget to go a step further and ask WHAT exactly they like about your content. These are clues to make your content even better. Lean into them.

Solicited Feedback:

Solicited feedback comes from you actively asking for feedback on your content, product, anything really. It's critical to implement a solicited feedback loop within your customer or audience journey.

It's like getting a health check from a doctor every few days. It keeps you honest and ensures that you keep pulse on your customers or audience.

In fact, I have a section at the bottom of each newsletter soliciting feedback. You can check it out at the bottom of this newsletter. (And feel free to vote!)

While we're at it, why don't we check out last week's results?

Not a huge sample size, but hey, I'll take it — 3 votes for "Incredible."  (If you're one of the 3 who voted, thank you!)

Now, there is a more scientific method of soliciting feedback called Net Promoter Score, which I use for my companies.

Using Net Promoter Score:

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is powerful. In fact, it's used universally across various industries by some of the world's biggest brands today like Apple, Louis Vuitton, and Toyota.

Your NPS measures customer experience and predicts business growth. This is a proven metric and can transform YOUR business. How does it work?

Calculating Your NPS:

Your NPS data all comes from this key question:

On a scale of 0-10: How likely is it that you would recommend [YOUR BUSINESS] to a friend or colleague?

Take a look at this chart:

How do you interpret the data?

Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying from you and refer others, fueling growth.

Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but not enthusiastic customers who might choose another competitive offering.

Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

Subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters gives you the Net Promoter Score, which can range from a low of -100 (if every customer is a Detractor) to a high of 100 (if every customer is a Promoter).

Let's walk through a real world example from one of my own companies, Urban EDC, together.

Urban EDC's Net Promoter Score:

Before I reveal Urban EDC's Net Promoter Score, there's something I need to explain.

I made one slight modification to the traditional NPS survey.

This is the standard NPS survey question:

On a scale of 0-10: How likely is it that you would recommend [YOUR BUSINESS] to a friend or colleague?

I modified it ever so slightly to:

On a scale of 0-10, if a friend or colleague expressed an interest in everyday carry gear, how likely is it that you would recommend Urban EDC Supply to them?

Why did I add this extra phrase into the question?

Because we were getting too many responses like, "my friends aren't interested in everyday carry gear."

Essentially, we had to modify the survey to niche it down to only those who were interested in everyday carry gear. Problem solved.

Now, there is ONE more wrinkle I want to mention:

We send out NPS surveys at 4 different points in the customer journey:

• Website

• Cold customers

• After 1st purchase

• After multiple purchases

We do this so we can get a snapshot of the customer avatar during important moments along their user journey.

And the results are fascinating.

Before I give you the results, let's have some fun, shall we?

Quick trivia: Out of those 4, can you guess which NPS survey scored highest to lowest?

I'll give you a minute.

Ok, ready for the results?

Website NPS: 6.2

Cold customers NPS: 54.3

After 1st purchase NPS: 64.9

After multiple purchases NPS: 80.9

Interpreting Urban EDC's NPS:

You can see that the coldest (top of funnel) NPS is the lowest, followed by cold customers (purchased a while ago), followed by after 1st purchase (one-time customer), followed by after multiple purchases (repeat customer).

If you average out those 4 scores, Urban EDC's NPS is... (drum roll please)... 51.5.

To be fair, I don't believe that the website NPS (6.2) is that accurate since they are technically not our customers. They never bought anything. Anybody (even our competitors!) can take the survey and input whatever results they'd like.

So if we remove the website NPS, Urban EDC's NPS is 66.7

Here are the industry averages according to Retently for 2022.

Business to Business (B2B):

Business to Consumer (B2C):

Benchmarking Urban EDC with other retail companies under B2C, Urban EDC is above the benchmark of 61. Woohoo!

If you want to nerd out about NPS even further, I recommend checking out Retently's excellent article.

What To Do With Feedback:

Let's talk about what you should DO with all this feedback.

There are two types of feedback: good and bad. (Duh.)

With either type of feedback, the first thing to do is either stop doing something (bad feedback), or do MORE of something that's resonating (good feedback).

Now, when you receive good feedback, take advantage of this opportunity.

Ask for testimonials for your product or referrals. This is free marketing generated by your own happy customers. There's nothing else like it!

Now, let's talk about the not-so-good ones.

The right thing to do is reach out to your customers and make things right. There's an opportunity here to take a bad situation and create a positive outcome from it.

It may not win them over completely, but it will at least stop them from spreading negative remarks on social media.

That's it! Try this out yourself and let me know on Twitter what you think! (And don't forget to share this snack with your friends!)

Hope you enjoyed this week's Growth Snack! 😋 

🎛 Metrics Dashboard

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💺 Passenger of the Week

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8am is the daily email read by 1000s of creators, entrepreneurs, hustlers, and growth-nuts.

Here's the pitch:

"8AM delivers just ONE great story, idea, or gem of advice every morning at 8AM (ish). 7 Days a Week. No junk ever."

You can subscribe here.

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💬 Final Word

Thank you for all the birthday wishes this week!

It made me realize how many new friends I met online since my creator journey began in November! 🙌🏻

Craziest thing?

I spent a good chunk of my birthday writing this newsletter... by choice.

Call me crazy but I love what I do.

See you next week!

Yong-Soo Chung — Serial Entrepreneur, Podcaster