{"id":36823,"date":"2023-10-20T14:46:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/growth-strategy-pocketbook-raises-500000-and-shares-expansion-plans-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:46:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:46:25","slug":"growth-strategy-pocketbook-raises-500000-and-shares-expansion-plans-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/growth-strategy-pocketbook-raises-500000-and-shares-expansion-plans-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Growth strategy: Pocketbook raises $500,000 and shares expansion plans &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/l_pocketbook-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_pocketbook-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Budgeting app Pocketbook has this week announced they\u2019re closing their $500,000 seed funding round after signing investments deals with Tank Stream Ventures, <i>Sunrise<\/i> host David Koch and other private equity investors.<\/p>\n<p>Co-founder Bosco Tan told <i>StartupSmart <\/i>the funds will be used to grow the business by hiring marketing staff and investing in growth strategies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re at a crossroad trying to decide what the next new growth method that we\u2019ll pursue will be,\u201d Tan says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we have money we\u2019ll look at spending a bit on marketing and advertising. We\u2019ll be exploring what kind of ad space will work. My intuition says we\u2019re a good fit for search, and maybe investing in SEO (search engine optimisation).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tan says not only are they now financially ready to invest in marketing, they\u2019re also more confident they can craft strong campaigns after being in the market dealing with customers for the last few months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing able to understand our customers more, as well as why and where they\u2019re engaging with our offering and each other creates more opportunities,\u201d Tan says.<\/p>\n<p>The Pocketbook team are in partnership discussions with a range of financial service providers and publications.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re also looking to hire a product manager and a marketer. Tan says he and co-founder Alvin Singh are excited about making their first hire, but want to make sure they get it right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first couple of people shape the culture, so it\u2019s important to get your first hires right,\u201d Tan says. \u201cOne of the tell-tale signs of whether someone fits in a start-up comes from catching up for a cup of coffee or a beer, so that\u2019s where we\u2019ll be doing our first interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tan says they will be looking for people who share their key values.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey need to get what\u2019s consumer focused and what isn\u2019t. We\u2019re a consumer product and we need to never forget that. We need to understand exactly how to keep making the app more usable, and be able to accurately describe all the moving parts clearly,\u201d Tan says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Budgeting app Pocketbook has this week announced they\u2019re closing their $500,000 seed funding round after signing investments deals with Tank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}