You can point the finger any direction, but our industry somehow took the most efficient businesses in the world and turned them into cash incinerators, all in the name of growth.
We believe in offering an antidote to the startup rat race.
This mindset has put countless companies out of business, with their doors closed and their teams furloughed. Unnecessarily.
Curious is a long-term home for real businesses and operators, who know that it’s not a zero-sum game.
Just because a business isn’t a fit for the venture capital model, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the potential to be an exceptional and growing business.
We exist to help founders transition their company from unsustainable to sustainable, to change the culture from urgent to calm. As a team of operators, we evaluate a business on what it can become and help it get there.
By definition, we’re in the business of private equity, but we view it differently. We work to fulfill the vision of the founders, while operating businesses in the context of decades, not years.
We created a repeatable process that allows us to excel at the transition. This includes learning from what's been done and why, retaining key team members, and adding missing talent. We aim to be operationally great from the start.
We're methodical in reviewing the fundamentals of the businesses we acquire, including existing pricing methodology and processes for delivering the product. Often, we help a product move up market or wider in their reach with our deep go-to-market experience.
Each portfolio company has paid acquisition and general customer acquisition efforts managed at the Curious level that optimizes for brand, retargeting, and keyword specific campaigns to better reach the target customer.
Too many software companies focus purely on top of funnel. We instead look first at re-engaging prospects or churned customers, and expanding usage by existing customers. Customer success is one of our key operational levers.
As part of resetting the table in transition and on-going operations, we review and optimize variable costs to unlock more flexibility in spending on growth channels and on investment in team development.
Finally, we work to keep the existing team in place and implement an incentive structure that focuses on earnings growth as the key barometer of success. This allows us to maintain a sustainable business that's not reliant on external funding.
Curious is a long-term holding company that buys and grows software companies with empathy.
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