The Metric Cheat Sheet You’ve Been Looking For!

Look no further for your quick list of startup metrics

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Are you new to startup analytics? A new employee drowning in metric jargon? Don’t worry, if it’s a quick reference of each metric that you need, this sheet has you covered. After reading this, you’ll never confuse MRR with MoM again! Knowing your metrics is the first step to understanding KPI’s and startup analytics.

Without further ado, here’s a list of metrics grouped by category. (Note: many metrics are used across categories)

Finance

1. MRR (monthly recurring revenue)
2. ARR (annual recurring revenue)
3. Gross Profit — total revenue - the cost of goods sold
4. Deferred Revenue — amount received in advance of earning it
5. Billings — current quarterly revenue + deferred revenue from the previous quarter.
6. MoM (month on month growth) — the rate of growth from month to month
7. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes depreciation, and amortization)
8. CMGR (compounded monthly growth rate) — (last month/first month) ^ (1/ #of months) — 1
9. Net Churn — (MRR lost — MRR from upsells) this month / MRR at start of the month
10. GCR (gross churn rate) — MRR lost in a given month / MRR at beginning of the month
11. Monthly Cash Burn Rate — how much you spend per month (gross)
12. Net Burn Rate — Revenue - gross burn
13. Gross Burn — monthly expenses + any other cash outlays
14. ARR (annual run rate) — Projection of current MRR into future, annualized
15. Gross Margin — the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold
16. TAM (total addressable market) — revenue opportunity available for a product
17. Runway — remaining cash/ monthly burn

Customer-centered

1. CAC (customer acquisition cost) — (cost of sales + marketing) / (# customers acquired)
2. LTV (Life Time Value) — (the expected monthly revenue per customer) x (average lifetime of a customer)
3. MCR (monthly churn rate) — # of customers lost this month / prior month total
4. Retention by Cohort — % of the original base that is still transacting
5. Network Effects — effects of one user on the value of that product to other people
6. NPS (net promoter score) — how likely a user is to recommend your product
7. Referral — The % of your customers that come from existing customers

Marketing

1. DAU (daily active users) — # users that return to the site on a daily basis
2. MAU (monthly active users) — # users return to the site on a monthly basis
3. Number of logins — the number of times customers have logged in to your portal
4. Activation rate — the number of users taking specific action
5. Conversion Rate — the number of users that complete a purchase
6. Organic traffic — the amount of unpaid traffic from search results
7. Direct Traffic — the amount of traffic coming directly to a page via a link or entering the URL
8. Platform Risk — dependence on a specific platform or channel
9. Virality (or Viral coefficient) — (# invitations sent per user) x (% conversion rate)

Sales

1. ARPA (Annual Revenue per Account — (ARR/ # of customers)
2. TCV (total contract value) — the value of one-time + recurring charges
3. ACV (annual contract value) — value a contract brings annually
4. CCR (customer concentration risk) — revenue from the largest customer/ total revenue
5. Sell Through Rate — the number of units sold in a period/ number of items at the beginning of the period
6. New leads per month
7. Number of qualified sales opportunities per month
8. Lead Conversion Rate
9. Calls and Emails per sales representative
10. Pipeline Value — expected revenue from active sales opportunities in a given timeframe

Operations + Project Management

1. Productivity — (units of input)/(units of output)
2. ROI (Return of Investment) — (net benefits/costs) x 100
3. BCWP (Budgeted Cost of Work Performed) — % of completed work/ budget at completion
4. Actual cost — total costs per given time period x time period
5. Cost Variance — (budgeted cost of work) — (actual cost of work)
6. Schedule Variance — (Budgeted cost of work performed )- (budgeted cost of work scheduled)
7. CPI (Cost Performance Index) — BCWP / Actual Costs

Human Resources

1. Employee Retention
2. Employee Churn or Employee Turnover Rate (ETR)
3. SCR (Salary Competitiveness Ratio)
4. Employee Satisfaction Index
5. Revenue per Employee
6. HCVA (Human Capital Value Added)
7. Absenteeism Rate — (avg # employees x missed workdays) / (avg # employees x total workdays)

If you found this helpful, check out the work I’ve been doing this month on learning KPIs and start-up analytics here!