Crushing it: Truebill's Journey from Death's Doorstep to Hyper Growth

In the last 48 months, the fintech app Truebill, which helps users manage their personal finances, has had 47 months of exceptional growth. But in this week’s episode of the Breakout Growth Podcast, brought to you by Rise with SAP, Ethan Garr and Sean Ellis find out that before this hypergrowth tear began, the company was actually on death’s doorstep. Four years ago, the two-year-old startup had just three months of runway remaining, and Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Yahya Mokhtarzada was told by one of his investors that the only option was to sell. He figured the company had the bandwidth for two more experiments; one of those tests would change everything! The test shifted the business from an affiliate to a premium subscription model, and the surprising conversion result didn’t just buy more time, it was the final piece needed for Truebill to achieve Product/Market Fit. Since then, Truebill’s breakout growth success has been a story of “eternal tweaking” where Yahya has come to learn that if you are doing growth right, resources never free up the way you expect. As Chief Revenue Officer in a B2C business, he sees his role as one of setting up teams to stay focused on the things that matter and ensuring individuals can continuously thrive by leveraging their creativity. And creativity seems to be one of the key success factors for Truebill. If you download the app, you might be surprised by the “pay what you think is fair” pricing model, and other unique elements that drive users to aha moments where they start thinking about their finances and saving money in different ways.    There is plenty to learn in this episode, but before you jump in learn more about RISE with SAP S/4Hana Cloud here. If you have ambitious goals, SAP is the technology partner you need to scale and drive innovation. Instead of relying on stitched together solutions to manage business finances, operations, and customer relations, leverage the flexibility of SAP’s cloud-based ERP solution to gain the insights that will help drive your breakout growth success.  RISE with SAP Link: bit.ly/3u27Ay6 Thanks for tuning in. Please subscribe and share the Breakout Growth Podcast with your colleagues and friends.  We discussed:* “The app I always needed:” how an annoying $40/month subscription fee drove Truebill’s inception  (04:14)* Chief Revenue Officer: a very different role in B2B vs. B2C (07:01)* “We weren’t the cool kids:” Struggling to find traction and Product/Market Fit (11:10)*  Crunch time: 3 months of runway and time for two experiments. What a last-chance test on premium subscriptions taught Truebill (22:27) Get full access to Sean’s Substack at seanellis.substack.com/subscribe