About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities and hidden costs of cohort financing in user acquisition.

Everyone's telling you cohort financing is free money to scale. It's not, and the contract fine print is where that story falls apart.Josh Chandley (President & COO, Wildcard Games) sits down with Phil Mohr (CEO & Co-founder, Metica) and Martin Macmillan (Founder, Pollen Capital) to break down what cohort financing actually costs, who really takes the risk, and how founders keep getting burned by deals they don't fully understand. Martin lent almost $1B through Pollen VC with zero credit defaults over a decade. Phil looked at 40-50 games before Metica stopped writing new cohort deals altogether. Between them, they unpack the math the sales guys don't want you to run.Topics Covered:• UA financing vs cohort financing• Why receivables lending scaled down• The 80/20 mechanics of a cohort deal• Who actually takes the risk on a cohort• Cross-collateralization and disguised liens• What makes a good candidate for financing• Breakeven windows and LTV curve shape• The real annualized cost of cohort financing• How financing cost raises your effective CPI• Why finance and UA teams don't align• Getting free debt from your ad networks• Red flags in cohort financing contracts• What…

People in this episode

Guests: Josh Chandley, Phil Mohr, Martin Macmillan

Topics covered

• UA financing
• cohort financing
• financial risks
• contract traps
• funding qualifications
• effective CPI
• debt and equity deals

Keywords

• cohort financing
• UA financing
• financial risks
• contract traps
• effective CPI
• debt financing
• funding

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wildcard Games, Metica, Pollen Capital, Pollen VC

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