9 Key Financial Metrics for Startups: What to Track and Why
To shed light on the crucial financial metrics startups should track, we’ve gathered insights from nine top startup leaders, including CEOs and Founders. From understanding the importance of tracking burn rate for strategic planning to enhancing customer retention and revenue by monitoring churn rate, discover the metrics these experts deem vital for startup success.
- Burn Rate: Tracking for Strategic Planning
- New Accounts: Key Metric for SaaS Startups
- Quick Ratio: Ensuring Financial Resilience
- Innovation Investment Index: Gauge for Growth
- Monthly Recurring Revenue: Guides Budgeting Decisions
- User Retention: Indicator of Customer Satisfaction
- Customer Lifetime Value: Estimating Customer Worth
- Customer Acquisition Cost: Optimizing Marketing Efficiency
- Churn Rate: Enhancing Customer Retention and Revenue
Burn Rate: Tracking for Strategic Planning
The vitality of financial health is epitomized by three key metrics: cash on hand, burn rate, and weeks of liquidity on hand. These metrics serve as the lifeblood of a company’s financial structure, offering a clear picture of immediate fiscal stability and long-term sustainability.
Understanding this information is crucial because it collectively provides a snapshot of a company’s financial health and its operational efficiency. For instance, at Highland Laboratories Inc., tracking our burn rate has been instrumental in strategic planning.
It has allowed us to anticipate funding needs and take action well in advance, whether that’s cutting unnecessary expenses, optimizing operations, or preparing to raise additional capital.
Keith Gregory, Chief Revenue and Financial Officer, Highland Laboratories Inc.
New Accounts: Key Metric for SaaS Startups
As a fintech startup, we track a lot of metrics, but what really matters for a SaaS company is the number of new accounts. We charge a flat monthly fee for people who use our accounting management system, and the main metric we have in mind is how many accounts we get every month.
On a secondary level, we track visits to our website, how many clicks our ads get, etc. Yet, at the end of the month, what matters is how many paid accounts we get.
Lori Shao, Founder and CEO, Finli
Quick Ratio: Ensuring Financial Resilience
One metric that’s crucial for my startup is the “Quick Ratio,” also known as the “Acid-Test Ratio.” It measures our ability to use our most liquid assets to cover current liabilities.
Tracking this helped us maintain a strong cash position and ensured we could react quickly to any market changes.
For instance, seeing our Quick Ratio dip below the industry standard prompted us to reevaluate our inventory levels and reduce unnecessary overhead, which quickly improved our financial resilience.
Farhan Zafar Khan, CEO, Book on Board
Innovation Investment Index: Gauge for Growth
In our startup, we closely monitor the Innovation Investment Index (III), a metric gauging the efficiency of our investments in new technologies, particularly in the NFT and blockchain realm.
This index is pivotal because it directly correlates with our long-term growth and market relevance. For instance, a recent strategic investment in a cutting-edge blockchain protocol significantly improved our III.
This improvement was not just a number; it translated into tangible benefits. We noticed a marked increase in client engagement and a surge in partnerships with other tech companies.
Artem Minaev, Co-Founder, CryptoDose
Monthly Recurring Revenue: Guides Budgeting Decisions
One key financial metric we monitor at Numble is the Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
This is crucial because it gives us a clear picture of the steady income we can expect every month. With a view on this, we can plan and make smart budgeting decisions, allowing us to invest in a new hire, more marketing, or additional tools for the business.
If you use Stripe, you can track MRR within the analytics dashboard. Other tools allow a quick view of this too. And if you love your spreadsheets, Google Sheets is actually a great option for this too.
Kim Maine, Chief Numbler, Numble
User Retention: Indicator of Customer Satisfaction
In our startup, we closely monitor user retention because it shows us how many customers keep using our product over time. This metric is crucial as it reflects how much value our product adds and how happy our users are.
By keeping an eye on user retention, we understand what keeps our customers coming back and where we need to improve. Focusing on this has not only made our users happier but also increased our profits, as satisfied customers stick around longer and contribute more to our business.
Matias Rodsevich, Founder, PRHive
Customer Lifetime Value: Estimating Customer Worth
As the head of a tech startup, I pay close attention to Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV). It tells us how much a customer is worth to our business over an estimated customer lifespan. As an example of its importance, there was a time when we experienced a sudden drop in CLTV.
We realized that a higher churn rate was diminishing our profits. Hence, we shifted our efforts towards improving customer service and engagement, which subsequently increased the CLTV, leading to a healthier bottom line.
Abid Salahi, Co-Founder and CEO, FinlyWealth
Customer Acquisition Cost: Optimizing Marketing Efficiency
One important financial metric we track at Promotional Product Inc. is the customer acquisition cost (CAC). This is the amount of money we spend on marketing and sales efforts to gain new customers.
It’s important because it helps us understand the efficiency of our marketing strategies and the return on investment for each customer. For example, by tracking our CAC, we could identify that our social media ads were not yielding a high enough conversion rate.
As a result, we adjusted our ad targeting and messaging, which led to a decrease in our CAC and an increase in customer conversion. This not only saved us money but also helped us gain more customers at a lower cost, leading to a higher profit margin.
Overall, tracking our CAC has allowed us to make data-driven decisions and optimize our marketing efforts for maximum impact and profitability.
Rick Young, Founder and COO, Promotional Product Inc.
Churn Rate: Enhancing Customer Retention and Revenue
We closely monitor our Churn Rate, which is pivotal for understanding customer retention. It reflects the percentage of customers who stop using our service over a given period. Watching Churn Rate helped us realize the importance of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
We implemented targeted retention strategies and improved our service based on customer feedback. This approach not only reduced our Churn Rate but also increased customer lifetime value, contributing positively to our revenue.
Danielle Roberts, Co-Founder, Boomer Benefits
