Amit Singh

Breadcrumbs

A behind-the-scenes story of a startup.

Amit Singh · First told on Twitter

As it often happens It started with an ‘insight’

Two friends talking over coffee at a café

Early 2020 Two friends In boring jobs At a café On their second cappuccino

  1. To-be founder

    Bread is a high-repeat use case, bro Everyone eats it. Every single day High-repeat lends itself well to app play Which turns it into a winner-takes-all Think subscription Bread-as-a-service

Six months later The Bread Company was born TBC, for short A seed round, a logo and a ping-pong table

Strategy discussion

  1. Founder

    We need to do 10x next quarter

  2. CFO, newly joined

    10x? In a quarter?

  3. Founder

    That’s how we roll

  4. CMO

    We should do a big bang on TV during the IPL

  5. Founder

    That’s not uninteresting When is the IPL?

  6. Brand manager

    Cred ads worked well for them Tanmay is a friend I will take it up

  7. Founder

    Super, let’s crush it

  8. Brand manager

    Apna time aayega…

The IPL campaign update, on Slack

#marketing

CMO

“Picasso Oh Lord!” ads worked Installs zoomed Sales sky-rocketed All this at 90% retention Yay!

TBC's IPL ad: "Oh Lord! Give us our daily bread. Subscribe now. The Bread Company", beside a Picasso-style painting of two people eating bread

👌👏🚀🍺🤑🔥

A crowded room at night, out of focus, a party in full swing

The office celebrated Someone ordered a cake Not bread

Quarterly review, post IPL

  1. VP, Analytics

    We’ve a retention problem

  2. Founder

    90% retention is not a problem

  3. VP, Analytics

    7-day retention

    90 %

    28-day retention

    0.42 %

  4. Founder

    What? Can’t be Customers love us

  5. CBO

    Ratings are managed

  6. Founder

    RCA, please I’m flying to Tokyo next week We’re in the middle of a big raise We can’t risk that Also our runway… I mean RCA ASAP

  7. MT, Analytics

    Could it be due to the ‘free breakfasts’ offer?

  8. Founder

    What free breakfasts! That was our inaugural offer We are not running that campaign anymore Wait… Are we?

  9. MT, Analytics

    Very much My friends keep switching SIMs every week To subscribe to the free plan

Newsflash

Newsflash

Inflation in the US spikes. The Fed increases rates.

Capital becomes expensive Flight to quality “Profitable growth” and all that jazz

A falling share price chart with Netflix's logo and its founder, Reed Hastings

Markets turned Questions changed Metrics changed Capital flow stalled Almost overnight

Elsewhere

Crusty loaves on brown paper

Boutique Baker buys bread From the Small Baker At x Adds sesame seeds to make it look exotic Wraps it in brown paper Calls it handcrafted and artisan Sells at 5x Makes money

TBC today

A loaf's crust up close

Tokyo meeting did not go well Runway wasn’t long enough HR is preparing a file on Airtable Hopefully, a founder somewhere is pushing HR to hire fast

But all that is left of TBC today is… You guessed it… Breadcrumbs

Any similarity to actual founders or startups, living or dead, or any actual events, is purely coincidental and entirely unintentional.