You will need to know this number each day, so you'll focus on Contracted ARR in your CRM tool (as opposed to accounting ARR).
Big ARR milestones are $100K (Signal), $1 million (PMF), $10 million (Growth), $100 million (IPO Scale)
🧵: The 10 Metrics for SaaS Startups (an Operator's Guide)
Focusing on the wrong things can kill your startup.
Based on founding and scaling @edenworkplace, here are the metrics that matter most:
You will need to know this number each day, so you'll focus on Contracted ARR in your CRM tool (as opposed to accounting ARR).
Big ARR milestones are $100K (Signal), $1 million (PMF), $10 million (Growth), $100 million (IPO Scale)
Once you get past the Signal stage, your ARR growth is the primary determinant of future success (and valuation).
Strong annual growth rate from Signal to PMF is 4x+ and from PMF to Growth is 2.5x+.
@edenofficemagic grew 11x between Signal and PMF stages.
ACV often starts low for a SaaS company (as your product is not featureful enough for large enterprises) and grows as the company moves upmarket.
ACV is calculated by taking total revenue and dividing it by your number of customer logos.
Most SaaS companies will make ACV growth a focus.
It is fair to increase revenue per customer as you add more value to users in new features, integrations, and products.
@edenofficemagic grew ACV 2.3x last year, mostly through cross-selling new products.
NDR tracks what happens to $1.00 of avg customer revenue 12 months after acquiring the customer.
You want positive NDR, as that means customer expansion more than offsets reduction and churn.
Below are @edenworkplace's cohorts (132% NDR).
A high churn rate always catches up to you, typically in the Growth stage.
"Good" depends on ACV here. Very SMB can be > 30% annual gross churn. Enterprise is typically < 10%.
Generally, a good SaaS company is well north of 60%, and ideally closer to 80%.
Be conservative: include CSM and support costs in COGS, not just product costs such as AWS. Your VCs will be conservative, so you are better off not deluding yourselves.
CAC is calculated by taking sales and marketing cost and dividing it by the number of new logos acquired.
Then divide CAC by avg gross profit contribution of new logos to determine payback.
6-18 months payback is often the goal.
Cash is like oxygen. When you have it, you don't think about it. When you don't, it is all you think about.
You calculate runway by taking cash balance and dividing it by monthly burn.
Typically, startups aim for 24+ months at raise and 6+ always.
Pipeline is calculated as the sum of outstanding sales contracts (not closed won or lost).
To some extent, your pipeline is your destiny.
If you have enough, you will hit your goals. If you don't, you'll miss them.
Watch it closely.
If you keep an eye on them, you'll at least know when you need to course correct.
Follow me @joedubeytldr for more concise lessons on startup building, investing, and decision making.
Onwards + upwards!
More from Finance
THREAD: Who are the rising stars of Chinese elite politics in the central Party-State bureaucracy?
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
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The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:
USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the
ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.
Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this
Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the
ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.
Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this
Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
👨💻 Last resume I sent to a startup one year ago, sharing with you to get ideas:
- Forget what you don't have, make your strength bold
- Pick one work experience and explain what you did in detail w/ bullet points
- Write it towards the role you apply
- Give social proof
/thread
"But I got no work experience..."
Make a open source lib, make a small side project for yourself, do freelance work, ask friends to work with them, no friends? Find friends on Github, and Twitter.
Bonus points:
- Show you care about the company: I used the company's brand font and gradient for in the resume for my name and "Thank You" note.
- Don't list 15 things and libraries you worked with, pick the most related ones to the role you're applying.
-🙅♂️"copy cover letter"
"I got no firends, no work"
One practical way is to reach out to conferences and offer to make their website for free. But make sure to do it good. You'll get:
- a project for portfolio
- new friends
- work experience
- learnt new stuff
- new thing for Twitter bio
If you don't even have the skills yet, why not try your chance for @LambdaSchool? No? @freeCodeCamp. Still not? Pick something from here and learn https://t.co/7NPS1zbLTi
You'll feel very overwhelmed, no escape, just acknowledge it and keep pushing.
- Forget what you don't have, make your strength bold
- Pick one work experience and explain what you did in detail w/ bullet points
- Write it towards the role you apply
- Give social proof
/thread
"But I got no work experience..."
Make a open source lib, make a small side project for yourself, do freelance work, ask friends to work with them, no friends? Find friends on Github, and Twitter.
Bonus points:
- Show you care about the company: I used the company's brand font and gradient for in the resume for my name and "Thank You" note.
- Don't list 15 things and libraries you worked with, pick the most related ones to the role you're applying.
-🙅♂️"copy cover letter"
"I got no firends, no work"
One practical way is to reach out to conferences and offer to make their website for free. But make sure to do it good. You'll get:
- a project for portfolio
- new friends
- work experience
- learnt new stuff
- new thing for Twitter bio
If you don't even have the skills yet, why not try your chance for @LambdaSchool? No? @freeCodeCamp. Still not? Pick something from here and learn https://t.co/7NPS1zbLTi
You'll feel very overwhelmed, no escape, just acknowledge it and keep pushing.