NPLG 9.29.23: The ChatGPT-Led Growth Effect (Noteable)

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Sep 29, 2023

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The ChatGPT-Led Growth Effect: Noteable and a 20x surge in individual signups

“After integrating with the ChatGPT Plugin Store, we noticed a significant uptick in user signups. The plugin has not only increased our signups but also led us to reevaluate some of our business strategies. We have been enabling analysts around the world who want to work with data the way they want, but never had the tools, time or skills to do so. Now, all they need to do is ask.” - Pierre Brunelle, CEO @ Noteable. Pierre shares his thoughts and experiences with the NPLG community on how to leverage the ChatGPT Plugin Store:

What is the ChatGPT Plugin Store?

The ChatGPT Plugin Store is a marketplace designed to augment the capabilities of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It’s linking ChatGPT's broad user base with external services. For businesses like us, Noteable, this equivalent of a marketplace provides an opportunity to display our offerings to a highly relevant audience as soon as we realize that LLM is useful for code generation.

While ChatGPT is pioneering this space, others like Microsoft with their Bing Chat Plugin and Google with Bard Extensions are also making efforts to catch up. However, the ChatGPT Plugin Store's blend of a large user base and GPT-4 is difficult to compete with so far. The possibilities are endless when you think about the options to use multiple plugins together.

How Does It Work?

The Plugin Store is integrated within the ChatGPT platform, allowing ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) users to discover and use a variety of plugins without exiting the ChatGPT’s UI. What’s unique about our plugin is that it requires authentication but is still free to use. You can learn about how we tackled OAuth for ChatGPT Plugin here: https://platform.noteable.io/blog/oauth-for-chatgpt-plugins.

We worked hard on improving the signup flow as well as the first-time experience by providing guidance through the Chat UI as most users might have never interacted with a Jupyter Notebook before. Our mission at Noteable has been from Day 1 to Enable Everyone with Data, and we just took a leap into the future when our plugin came out. We are now providing a ubiquitous compute platform including a managed environment, access to custom hardware (e.g. GPUs), and integration to any data sources.

About Noteable's ChatGPT Plugin and Noteable’s Free Plan

The ChatGPT Plugin is an extended interface for Noteable, broadening our customer base and opening up new niches. It allows users to easily create data stories, pipelines, and automation, reducing the time to insights from days to minutes. With the Noteable ChatGPT plugin, users of any technical ability can generate fully computational and interactive notebooks with a single prompt.

Watch a short demo and witness the power of the Noteable ChatGPT plugin: Getting Started with Data Analysis Using ChatGPT (click link for YouTube video).

The Noteable Free Plan offers a comprehensive suite of features for data collaboration at zero cost. It includes unlimited notebooks, CPU, collaborators, data storage, scheduled jobs, and support for Python, R, & SQL. The plan also features interactive no-code visualization and the Noteable ChatGPT Plugin, all backed by 24/7 community support.

What Do People Say About our ChatGPT Plugin?

Geoff Pofahl, PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor at one of the largest Universities in the US, had this to say about our plugin: “I gave a brief demo of a complex engagement with GPT-4 where I requested a collection of news headlines and a Jupyter Notebook for sentiment analysis. The team was amazed to see ChatGPT and Noteable collaborate to deliver a complete notebook. It was a moment of revelation for everyone.”

How Can Founders Leverage It?

Joining the ChatGPT Plugin Store is akin to becoming a third-party seller on Amazon and joining a two-sided market, offering several advantages:

Targeted Exposure: Direct access to a relevant audience. It’ll minimize your customer acquisition costs.
Credibility: You become part of a reputable brand that should add a layer of trust to your service.
Cross-Promotion: As a featured plugin, it’s a win-win for OpenAI and us.
User Feedback: Direct user feedback channels facilitate quick iterations of your product.
Sales Efficiency: Our multi-tenant and seamless onboarding helped us assess the potential behind a PLG motion, where we were more focused on PLS before.
Network Benefits: As the ChatGPT Plugin grows, we grow!
Core Focus: We were able to move away from pure qualitative data and enter the realm of quantitative data to make roadmap decisions.”

I would love feedback. Please hit me up on twitter @zacharydewitt or email me at zach@wing.vc. If you were forwarded this email and are interested in getting a weekly update on the best PLG companies, please join our growing community by subscribing.

PLG Benchmarking (Startups):

I will continue to update these metrics and add new metrics. I would love your feedback on what else I should track (zach@wing.vc).

Organic Traffic (as % of all website traffic):

Great: 70%
Good: 50%

Conversion rate (website visit → free user):

Great: 10%
Good: 5%

Activation rate (free user → activated user):

Great: 50%
Good: 30%

Paid conversion rate (free user → paid user):

Great: 10%
Good: 5%

Enterprise conversion rate (free user → enterprise plan):

Great: 4%
Good: 2%

Conversion from waitlist to free user:

<1 month on waitlist: ~50%
>3 months on waitlist: 20%

3-month user retention (% of all users still using product after 3 months):

Great: 30%
Good: 15%

GM-Adj. CAC Payback Period:

Great: 8 months (enterprise) / 3 months (SMB)
Good: 15 months (enterprise) / 8 months (SMB)

Net Dollar Retention %:

Great: 125% (enterprise) / 115% (SMB)
Good: 110% (enterprise) / 100% (SMB)

Note: Great is 75th percentile and Good is 50th percentile. For more detail on acqusition rates by channel (Organic, SEM, Social etc), please refer to this prior NPLG.

PLG Financial Benchmarking (Public PLG Companies):

Financial data updated weekly (as of latest market close).

Best-in-Class PLG Benchmarking:

15 Highest PLG EV / NTM Multiples:

15 Biggest PLG Stock Gainers (1 month):

Complete Notorious PLG Dataset (click to zoom):

Note: TTM = Trailing Twelve Months; NTM = Next Twelve Months. Rule of 40 = TTM Revenue Growth % + FCF Margin %. GM-Adjusted CAC Payback = Change in Quarterly Revenue / (Gross Margin % * Prior Quarter Sales & Marketing Expense) * 12. Recent IPOs will have temporary “N/A”s as Wall Street Research has to wait to initiate converge.

Recent PLG Financings (Private Companies):

Seed:

BetterLeap, an AI-powered outbound recruiting platform intended for automated career search matched with applicants' knowledge, has raised $13M. The round was led by Peakstate Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Active Capital, Streamlined Ventures, AirAngels and Stipple Capital.
Hifive, a platform intended to make organizations successful by going relationship-led, has raised $2.4M from undisclosed investors.

Series A:

Alcion, a company that provides backup and security services to enterprises, has raised $21M. The round was led by Veeam.
Kenjo, an all-in-one HR software designed to digitize HR management services, has raised $9.5M. The round was led by Hi Inov, with participation from Redalpine Venture Partners, The Delta, Lightbird Ventures and Innovation Nest.
Mesh, a fintech OS focused on digital asset transfers and account aggregation, has raised $22M. Money Forward led the round, and was joined by Galaxy, Samsung Next and previous investors Streamlined Ventures, SNR.VC and Hike VC.
Rocket.Chat, an open-source communication platform designed for team collaboration and omnichannel customer service, has raised $10M. The round was led by Alexia Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, Endeavor Promessas, New Enterprise Associates, and Valor Capital. DGF Investimentos, Greycroft, Graphene Ventures, and Monashees also participated in the round.
Secoda, a collaborative knowledge management tool designed to make data teams share metadata, queries, charts, and documentation, has raised $14M. The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from GarageCapital, Abstract Ventures and Y Combinator.

Series B:

Motherduck, a lightweight database platform, has raised $52.5M. The round was led by Felicis, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Madrona, Amplify Partners, Altimeter, Redpoint and Zero Prime.
Tabular, a data automation platform intended to automate the maintenance and optimization of data, has raised $36M at a $156M valuation. The round was led by Altimeter, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Zetta Venture Partners.
Writer, a startup that helps businesses write and summarize a wide range of content, has raised $100M at a $500M valuation. Iconiq Growth led the round, with participation from Accenture Ventures, Insight Partners, Acrew Capital, Aspect Ventures, WndrCo, Balderton Capital, Vibe Capital, Earl Grey Capital, The Perkins Fund, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority and The Vanguard Group.
ZayZoon, a company that lends employees money for a fee, has raised $34.5M. The round was co-led by Framework and EDC, with participation from ATB Financial.

Series E:

Mapbox, a startup that collects cloud-based location data, has raised $280M at a $1.3B valuation. SoftBank led the round.