Industries · Emerging & Specialized
A sign-up or a first order starts the sale, and what the customer does next finishes it.
A founder opens the dashboard on Monday morning. Installs are up, trial accounts are up, sellers are listed, and the bank balance has not moved. Nobody on the team can say how many of those sign-ups paid, came back or placed a second order.
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In one paragraph
Platform, app and D2C startups are young companies that win customers on a screen: a trial, an install, a listing, a demo class, a first box or a first order. GullySales looks at what each of those is worth, which source brought the ones who stayed, and who follows up when they go quiet.
The seven trades here sell different things. A B2B SaaS company sells a subscription to a business, a D2C brand sells a product to one person, a marketplace has to fill two sides, an e-learning platform sells a course to a learner or a parent. They share one weakness: the first action costs little to count and a lot to turn into revenue. Where they differ is what a returning customer looks like, and that has to be settled trade by trade.
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7 kinds of business
Each kind of business in platform, app & d2c startups sells a little differently.
Open the page closest to yours for how its buyers choose and what we would fix first.
B2B SaaS startups
Sales so far went to friends of friends. The work is a list of strangers who fit, a way to reach them, and one record of every trial and demo.
Read the page for b2b saas startupsB2C app startups
Installs are easy to buy and hard to keep. What counts is a return visit on day seven and a first purchase, with WhatsApp or push to bring lapsed users back.
Read the page for b2c app startupsD2C brands
One person orders from a phone. What a first order costs to win, set against the value of a second, decides whether growth pays for itself.
Read the page for ecommerce and d2c brandsOnline marketplaces
Sellers are recruited by phone, WhatsApp and field visits before buyers have a reason to arrive, and the thin side changes from city to city.
Read the page for online marketplacesMarketplace platforms
Provider onboarding and buyer enquiries grow together, and the quiet risk is a deal moving to phone and cash once the two sides have met.
Read the page for marketplace platformsE-learning platforms
A learner or parent attends a demo class and goes quiet. Recording each enquiry by course and source shows which campaign brought a paid student.
Read the page for online education and edtech companiesSubscription businesses
The first month carries the sale. The plan is won when a trial converts and kept or lost at renewal, so retention work sits beside acquisition.
Read the page for subscription businessesWhat they share
What usually goes wrong across platform, app & d2c startups.
Whichever of these you run, you will probably recognise most of them.
“We count sign-ups as if they were customers”
Installs, trial accounts, listings, demo class bookings and first orders go into one total. How many of them paid, and how many are still active, is a separate number that nobody has written down.
“Each channel reports its own success”
The ad account, the app store, search, WhatsApp and referrals each claim the same sign-up. We cannot tell which source produced the customers who stayed, so spend follows whichever report looks best.
“We do not know what one customer is worth against what we paid”
A first order, a trial or an install has a cost to win. Until we set it against what that customer brings back over a second order, a renewal or a repeat booking, we cannot say whether growth is paying for itself.
“The first days after sign-up are left alone”
A trial user never meets a person, an app user never does the main thing, a seller never takes a job, a learner misses the demo class. Nothing in our setup notices and reaches out.
“Customers who go quiet are noticed late”
A lapsed app user, a buyer who has not reordered, a member who paused and an idle seller drift away without a message from us. By the time someone looks at the numbers, the moment to ask has gone.
Where to start
What to fix first in platform, app & d2c startups.
In the order we would look at them. Your own enquiry records may change the order, and we would say so.
- Write down what counts as a paying customer and what counts as an active one in your business, and put both on the first screen of your dashboard next to the sign-up count.
- Give every sign-up a source when it arrives, whether that is an ad, a store listing, a seller call or a referral, and keep the source on the record through to the first payment.
- Work out the cost to win one customer and set it beside what a typical customer brings in over a second order, a renewal or a repeat booking.
- Decide the one action a new customer must take to be worth keeping, then plan a message or a call for the person who has not taken it.
- Set a rule for who counts as lapsed in your business and send those people a reason to return in WhatsApp, email or push, whichever they answer.
Related services
The work that usually comes up.
Which of these you need is decided after we have read your brief.
- Customer acquisition cost optimisationFind out which channel is actually cheap to acquire from and which only looks that way.
- Marketing attributionGive credit to the channel that actually influenced the sale, not just the last click.
- Churn analysis and reductionFind out why customers are actually leaving before you build another retention offer.
- Customer retention strategyPlan how you keep customers, instead of hoping good service is enough.
- Customer onboardingA new customer's first weeks with you should prove they chose right.
- Conversion rate optimisationGet more enquiries from the visitors you already have.
- E-commerce and marketplace marketingGet found and chosen on Amazon, Flipkart and IndiaMART, not just your own site.
- Funnel experimentation and A/B testingTest whether a shorter form or faster follow-up gets more enquiries to say yes.
FAQ
Questions about platform, app & d2c startups.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
When does a sign-up count as a customer?
Should we spend more on bringing people in or on keeping them?
How do we compare channels when each one reports its own numbers?
Should a person or a message follow up with a quiet customer?
What counts as a lapsed customer in our business?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
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