Unit Economics
Unit economics writing: CAC, LTV, payback period, contribution margin, and the numbers investors actually grade you on.
21 articles
SaaS Unit Economics Explained: CAC, LTV, and Payback Period
Unit economics determine if your SaaS business is sustainable. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), LTV (Lifetime Value), and payback period show whether you can afford to grow. A…
Net Revenue Retention: Why It Matters More Than New Sales
NRR (Net Revenue Retention) measures how much revenue you keep from existing customers after accounting for churn and expansion. Above 100% NRR means existing customers generate…
The Metrics That Move Exit Multiples and How to Improve Them
NRR, gross margin, CAC payback, and customer retention are valuation levers, not reporting tools. Track monthly, improve deliberately, present the trend.
What Makes a Company Worth Buying: The Seven Pillars of Exit Readiness
Buyers evaluate seven dimensions: financial clarity, revenue quality, unit economics, operational independence, legal cleanliness, growth trajectory, and defensibility.
Revenue Model Builder: How to Project MRR Growth With Real Drivers
MRR growth benchmarks by stage, churn rates by segment, expansion revenue targets, and how compounding turns small differences into massive outcomes over 18 months.
Unit Economics Calculator: CAC, LTV, and Payback Period Benchmarks for Startups
How to calculate CAC by channel, LTV with cohorts, LTV:CAC ratio benchmarks (3:1 minimum), payback period targets, and NRR benchmarks from real SaaS data.
Funding Readiness Score: How to Know If Your Startup Is Ready to Raise
Benchmarks for every metric investors evaluate: ARR by stage, growth rates, gross margin, NRR, burn multiple, and CAC payback. Know where you stand before the conversation starts.
The Startup KPI Dictionary: Precise Definitions and Investor Benchmarks by Stage
Precise KPI definitions matter. CAC, LTV, NRR, CAC payback, churn, and rule of 40 all have specific formulas.
What Different VCs Actually Look For: Analyzing the Pattern in Their Checks
Pre-seed VCs invest in founders and thesis fit. Series A VCs need proof: revenue, unit economics, replicable GTM.
Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: How to See Problems Three Months Before They Hit Your Revenue
Most startup metrics are lagging indicators: they tell you what already happened. Revenue, churn, and cash balance are outcomes of decisions made 1-6 months ago. By the time they…
How to Use SQL for Startup Analytics: The Queries Every Founder Should Know
SQL is the fastest way to extract the metrics that drive your financial model from your actual data. You do not need to be an engineer. You need to know 10-15 queries that pull…
Churn Rate: Every Way to Calculate It (And Why the Method You Choose Changes the Story You Tell)
Churn is not one number. It is a family of metrics, and the version you choose to present dramatically changes how your business looks to investors. Logo churn, revenue churn,…
How to Model Network Effects in a Marketplace
Network effects --- the property that a product becomes more valuable as more people use it --- are one of the most powerful competitive moats in business. But they are also one…
The Metrics That Matter at Pre-Seed vs. Seed vs. Series A
The metrics investors use to evaluate a company change significantly between pre-seed, seed, and Series A. At pre-seed, investors are evaluating the team and the hypothesis. At…
Gross Margin by Business Model: What's Good, What's Bad, What's a Problem
Gross margin benchmarks vary significantly by business model. What looks exceptional for one model looks catastrophic for another. A 40% gross margin is a problem for a SaaS…
The LTV:CAC Benchmarks by Stage and Business Model
LTV:CAC benchmarks are not universal. The threshold that matters depends on the business model (SaaS, marketplace, e-commerce), the funding stage (pre-seed through growth), and…
Unit Economics Across Multiple Markets: UK vs US vs UAE
Unit economics look very different across markets even for the same product. CAC varies by market maturity and competitive intensity. LTV varies by pricing power, average deal…
How to Model LTV for a Marketplace Business
LTV for a marketplace is more complex than LTV for a SaaS business because a marketplace often has two customer sides --- buyers and suppliers --- and the value generated is a…
Net Revenue Retention: The Number That Predicts Everything
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) measures how much revenue from an existing cohort of customers grows or shrinks over time, accounting for churn, contraction, and expansion. An NRR…
CAC, LTV, and Payback Period: Calculated Correctly for Once
CAC, LTV, and payback period are the three most cited unit economics metrics in venture capital conversations --- and the three most frequently calculated incorrectly. CAC must…
The Unit Economics Bible: Every Metric Defined, Calculated, and Benchmarked
The definitive reference for startup unit economics. CAC, LTV, NRR, gross margin, payback period, burn multiple, and Rule of 40. Every metric defined precisely, calculated…