Key takeaways
- Pick a few metrics that match your business model and track them monthly.
- Growth rate and retention matter more than absolute size early on.
- Know your runway to the month.
Pick metrics that fit your model
A SaaS company, a marketplace and a consumer app are judged differently. Choose one north-star metric plus a handful of supporting numbers, and report them the same way every month.
Core metrics
- Revenue and growth: MRR or monthly revenue, and month-on-month growth rate.
- Retention and churn: how many customers or how much revenue you keep each month.
- CAC: sales and marketing spend divided by new customers.
- LTV: gross profit per customer over their lifetime. Many investors like LTV:CAC of 3:1 or better.
- CAC payback: months of gross profit needed to earn back the cost of acquiring a customer.
- Burn and runway: monthly net burn and months of cash left.
Marketplace and consumer metrics
- GMV: total value of transactions on the platform, and your take rate.
- Liquidity: how often listings or requests get matched.
- DAU/MAU: daily vs monthly active users, a signal of engagement.
- Cohort retention: what share of users from each month are still active later.
Presenting metrics
Show trends over time, not single numbers. Be clear about definitions, and never mix bookings, revenue and GMV. Look up any term in our glossary.
This guide is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules and programme terms change, so check official sources and speak to a qualified adviser before making decisions.
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