Churn is inherently a bad thing for any startup. You don’t want to lose customers or revenue. At least not in the 99% of the cases.
But churn can also be spun into a good thing.
Churn is an opportunity for you to learn, what you can improve and do better. Because by churning, customers are essentially telling you that you’re not bringing enough value to them.
Hence churn is an opportunity for you to think about how you can deliver more value going forward. And start doing so. But you of course first need to understand why they churn – really understand it:
If they have chosen a competitor, figure out why? Is it a matter of features? Flow? Price? Or something completely different?
Should the churn make you reconsider your roadmap priorities? Or how you market and sell your product so expectations are better aligned, and you get better at understanding who the right and best customers are for you?
Etc.
There are plenty of opportunities to learn from churn, and you should. Unless churn happens because a customer goes bankrupt, each churning customer is an opportunity to understand the market, the customers and your value proposition to them better.
So take the time. Don’t neglect churn or accept it by relentlessly focusing on growth in new customers to compensate for the customers, who leave. First of all, it will be an issue when growth becomes harder to sustain. And second, and most importantly, you miss out on an opportunity to do better going forward. And reduce future churn.
(Photo by Junseong Lee on Unsplash)