The Mint Recap: Fireside Chat with Sean Harper of Kin
It was a real treat to have Sean Harper, Founder and CEO of Kin, as our special guest at The Mint! He led a great fireside conversation, reflecting on the journey of building and scaling Kin.
Here are five of our key insights and learnings from the chat:
- Find an underserved segment of the market
- Innovation isn't always primarily about product features
- Figure out your differentiators + double down
- Don’t scale until you understand your unit economics
- Don’t underestimate your resilience
More below!
1. Find an underserved segment of the market.
Going straight up the gut of the incumbent is rarely a good idea. But you also have to deeply understand why that segment is underserved, and why you are able to serve that segment profitably while the incumbents cannot.
Kin specialized in insuring quality houses and homeowners in areas with higher weather volatility. When they started the company, and still today, that is a very large and growing segment they were able to serve better than the incumbents — because of their technology and business model.
Make sure you thoroughly understand:
- why the niche you target is underserved, and
- what capabilities you have that enable you to serve that niche successfully.
Importantly, on that note: be realistic about the size of your niche.
2. Innovation isn't always primarily about product features.
Kin's homeowner’s insurance largely had the same features customers were familiar with, but it innovated on how the product was manufactured and distributed. That enabled them to give the customer a better value and preserve very high margins for themselves.
3. Figure out your differentiators and double down.
Sean and his team made sure to quickly learn what they were good at relative to their competition.
Then they doubled down on differentiating in those areas: finding and converting customers, and quantifying and pricing risk using advanced data science.
4. Don’t scale until you understand your unit economics.
Sean urged the founders to master their unit economics and business equation before trying to scale the business.
If you scale a model where CAC > LTV…things will not end well.
5. Don’t underestimate your resilience.
Sean shared that there were many times when it seemed like the business would fail, including a critical moment when they overdrew their bank account and drew down their venture debt line. But they powered through and figured out a way forward, proving to themselves how dedicated, creative, and resilient they really were.
Resilience is a muscle anyone can grow. When the going gets tough, push yourself to get tougher.
