¿Cómo hacemos updates a inversores en Workana?
En una conversación de Twitter salió el tema de los updates a inversores que hacemos en Workana. Por lo que hablo con otros emprendedores, este es siempre algo que odian hacer. Lo ven como una carga, un exceso de reporting, y algo que no les agrega valor. Y en medio de las millones de cosas e incendios que todo fundador apaga en su semana normal, dejarse un tiempo para esto no siempre es fácil. Y la mayoría termina mandando updates muy esporádicamente o (peor) sólo cuando hay buenas noticias.
Muchas de estas cosas son ciertas. Sí, no es nada entretenido escribir un update. Sí, es muy difícil encontrar el tiempo para hacerlo. Pero creo que sí te agrega valor. Hacerlo es una buena manera de mantener un diálogo relativamente constante con tus inversores. Cuánto más enterados estén de tus desafíos y éxitos, más contexto van a tener y mejor te van a poder aconsejar en esos momentos oscuros. Y no tengas dudas que vas a tener bastantes de esos momentos oscuros :S
Mi objetivo es enviar al menos uno cada tres meses, y tengo un task recurrente en Asana para no olvidarme. Al escribirlo, busco mantener un tono relajado pero enfocado, trato de escribir de la misma manera en que lo haría en un mail interno de la empresa. Y sobre que cosas contar, me gusta mostrar dónde nos fue bien (en general mando siempre los mismos KPIs), dónde necesitamos ayuda, dónde nos fue mal y alguna sorpresa prometedora. Agrego a veces una sección de noticias de la industria (si hay importantes) porque lo más probable es que nuestros inversores no se informen sobre nuestro nicho tanto como nosotros.
En el thread de Twitter nos comprometimos a mostrar uno viejo. Así que acá abajo les copio uno del 2015 (siempre los hacemos en inglés). Salvo algunos retoques para ocultar números absolutos, está prácticamente verbatim. Ideas y sugerencias para los próximos updates bienvenidas!
Workana Investor Update — October 2015
Hi all,
First investor update post funding! Very excited about how things have turned out, and about what’s next. We’re a bit worried that according to our lawyers the investment was not a birthday present, and that we actually need to keep working, but rest assured we’re looking for a second opinion :)
Where we need help: We’re looking to hire a Head of Finance, so if you know any amazing candidates, please send them our way.
Amazing stuff that we keep bragging about:
- Marketplace traction. We keep growing at a solid 2x growth rate in most important metrics:
- Total projects. 13% growth m/m and 2.3x annually (vs Sep 2014)
- Projects paid. 5% m/m and 2.2x annually
- New clients. 7% m/m and 2x annually

- Rebuy. Another good news, we started focusing on bringing back our current users. So far we’ve mostly done things off-platform (remarketing and emails), but it appears to work. In Sep paying customers with 1st buy 180 days or more jumped 17% to XX, and their % of total GMV jumped from 29% to 39%. We’re only scratching the surface here, we have a roadmap on things to try to keep us busy for at least 6 months (most of what’s coming involves tweaks to the product).
- Product. We’re finally picking up speed, and have launched 2 very big things:
- Mobile flows. Users can now create accounts, post projects, browse open projects, and send bids and messages via their phones. Still new, and conversion in mobile projects is so far low, but very pleased with how fast we’re moving here.

- Chat. We launched a real-time chat, for easier communication (one of the most requested features). We were worried about disintermediation here, since we’re only moderating these messages ex-post, but are hoping ease of use will offset this. This was also done in record time, we’re definitely improving in our dev execution (kudos to Leo, who’s organizing the team better while trying to push harder).

Really depressing stuff that we’ll pretend doesn’t exist:
- GMV growth. While we keep growing in local currency, when looking at the consolidated USD results devaluation has hit us hard, and we’re only growing 1.6x year/year. Given that most of our expenses are in USD, this affects our profitability and future plans. It appears local currencies will keep on devaluating (especially our top markets), so we’ll need to work this out, moving more costs to local currency.
- CAC Profitability. Related with above, but it’s starting to affect our LTV (steady in BRL/ARS, but dropping in USD) vs our CAC (steady in USD). Probably the first step is transferring our Google/FB accounts.
- Workana Studio. This is our attempt to have a direct sales force, with a customized offering for digital agencies (a natural client for us). Unfortunately, after 5 months our results here are almost non-existent. We’re still confident about its potential, but we’ll have to go back to the drawing board and start almost from scratch.
Industry news:
- Nubelo has added a full-time recruiting option, even integrating it heavily within their product. Our first impression is that this is not a good move, confusing users and underestimating the shift that is happening in employment and its future potential. A few months ago, Freelancer also added a local services category, which we also see as a mistake. This is an extra opportunity for us to keep our UI extra simple.
- Toptal is on track to reach $80m in sales. While I don’t know the company well, love their approach and how they communicate it.
- Thumbtack is the leader of the local services Freelancer launched. While announcing their $125m new round, they reflected on their learnings in their 6-year history. On a similar note to Etsy’s approach, their focus on tools for sellers is something that we can imitate at Workana. And we loved their Voices of Independence approach :P
Let me know if you have any questions or would like to catch up.
All the best!
