Investors love a good story. Bankers don’t. They count. I keep the romance for the end and the arithmetic up front. When the small sums behave, the big promises stop wobbling.
Margin comes before drama. I price to a contribution margin and hold that line. Discounts and favors answer to it, not the other way round. If growth crushes margin, it was never margin—only wishful thinking.
Customer acquisition cost is not a fruit salad. I track CAC by channel and kill the lazy ones. Blends hide sins; channels write them in pen. Clarity is cheaper than optimism.
LTV is not a slogan. I read cohorts until the curves settle and then take the number the graph gives. If retention wriggles, I don’t have LTV; I have churn with makeup.
Payback sets the speed limit. Slow money is expensive money. I tune activation and first value until cash returns inside a hard window. Faster payback makes every plan easier.
Cost-to-serve is counted in minutes, not myths. Refunds, failure loops, human touches—each one has a meter. Hidden hours are still costs. A shopkeeper’s book is the best MBA.
Expansion is policy, not luck. Tiers and add-ons are designed, priced, and measured. Net revenue retention should be earned, line by line, not prayed for at quarter end.
Cash beats clever. Annual prepay, clean collections, short cycles—these keep the lights honest. Fancy financing is what people try when discipline fails. I would rather be dull and solvent.
Once the facts hold, I allow the story. I state what changed—tech, law, cost, habit—and tie it to faster, cheaper, safer, or more certain. Then I say why us. If our support minutes are half the category, we profit where others bleed. Timing is not poetry; it is payback.
The flywheel is plain. Better margin funds tests. Tests drop CAC. Lower CAC widens margin. The loop feeds itself. No mysticism, only compounding.
I carry proof, not perfume. A margin ladder from list price to contribution. A table of channels with CAC, payback, and ceiling. Cohorts that settle. Cost-to-serve in minutes and mistakes. A three-driver model for bear, base, and bull.
There are traps I refuse. Inflated TAM means the customer is no one. Blended mirages blur truth. Top-line theatre grows while unit economics rot; that is not courage, it is decay.
A pattern that pays is simple. Build a core offer with honest margin. Add a premium tier that buys time back—priority support, faster turnaround. Add an expert layer tied to outcomes—review, redline, filing. Customers sort themselves; expansion rises; payback falls.
Cadence is character. Weekly I double or delete channels by CAC and payback. Monthly I ship one lever for net retention. Quarterly I remove one cost or reprice one benefit on the margin ladder. The routine keeps the numbers civil.
Valuation is permission to dream. Revenue is permission to endure. I stack the facts first and speak later. The market may argue about my multiple; it cannot argue with my math.