LifeMinders: Doing It By the Numbers
“Where’s your hypothesis? Where’s your data? Where’s your proof?” It’s 10 am at LifeMinders Inc., a Web-based reminder service based in Hernon, Virginia, and co-founder Steve Chapin is in full laboratory-scientist mode. For the past hour, Chapin, 37, has been arguing with his creative team over what to title the subject of a new marketing email that will go out to the company’s more than 12 million subscribers. It’s a big deal; in a way, it’s what the whole business turns on. Founded in March 1999, LifeMinders reminds subscribers about everything from birthdays and anniversaries to the release date of a new CD by sending them an email, in which the company includes paid advertisements.
Which is why the company’s performance can depend on a single email subject line. The subject must sound appealing, or subscribers will hit “delete” instead of “open.” In their search for the perfect subject line, Chapin’s people have been trying to top one another with their best material. At first, Chapin watches the process like a patient professor. But then he interrupts to ask whether anyone has actually confirmed these great ideas with data. Heads shake, and Chapin sends the team members back to their PCs. “Test, test, test,” chants cofounder John Chapin, 34, Steve’s brother. “A person with an idea and no data is just another … ” He pauses and smiles. “Well, just another person with an opinion.”
If fast implementation is the name of the game, the folks at LifeMinders believe that they’ve found a precision formula — a business version of the scientific method used in research laboratories. Like scientists, the Chapin brothers and their 150 colleagues work not by “feel” or “gut instinct” but by testing cold, hard data. Every idea, no matter how brilliant it may seem, must first be turned into a hypothesis and then tested on a small customer segment. If the data comes back positive, then the idea can be unleashed on the rest of the world. “Our approach to the world is iterative,” explains Steve Chapin. “Build, learn. Build, learn.”
Better still, the Chapin brothers have found a way to instill their method with a kind of thrilling urgency. Using everything from weekly pep talks to strict deadlines — no project can take more than three weeks to complete — LifeMinders has managed a surprising number of successes in its first year, including a near-flawless series of launches, a $60 million ipo in November 1999 (and a follow-up offering in February that drew $87 million), and revenues that exceeded analysts’ predictions by 70%.
