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Metrics

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YC Key Metrics

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https://www.ycombinator.com/library/1y-key-metrics
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Key Metrics

Here is a list of key metrics by business type that we put together. You should know the relevant metrics for your business by heart.

Enterprise

Total customers
Bookings
Revenue
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: Scale

SaaS

Total customers
Bookings
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Gross account churn
Net dollar churn
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Quick ratio: a measure of a company’s short term liquidity
Magic number: a measure of sales efficiency that looks at what the output of a year’s worth of revenue growth is per dollar spent on sales and marketing
Burn rate / runway
Example: Slack

Usage-Based

Monthly revenue
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Dollar-based net expansion
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: Twilio

Subscription

Total subscribers
Trial conversion (if applicable)
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Gross user churn
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: Netflix

Transactional

Gross transaction volume (GTV)
Net revenue
Net revenue CMGR
Take rate (net revenue as % of GTV)
Gross margin
User retention
User transaction frequency
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: PayPal

Marketplace

Gross merchandise value (GMV)
Net revenue
Net revenue CMGR
Take rate (net revenue as % of GMV)
Gross margin
Contribution margin per order
Customer retention
Seller retention
Transactions frequency
Average transaction value
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Seller LTV / paid SAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: Airbnb

E-Commerce

Total visits
Total unique visitors
Total customers
Conversion rate
Total registered accounts
Revenue
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Customer retention
Order frequency
Average order value
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Net working capital as % of change sales
Burn rate / runway
Example: Bonobos

Advertising

Total visits (if applicable)
Page views (if applicable)
Unique visitors (if applicable)
Minutes per session
Daily active users (DAU)
Monthly active users (MAU)
Percent logged-in
Downloads / installs (if applicable)
Mobile usage share
Impressions per user
Average cost-per-impression (CPM)
Average click-through-rate (CTR)
Revenue
Revenue CMGR
User retention
User LTV / paid CAC
Burn rate / runway
Example: Twitter

Hardware

Total units sold
Average unit price
Revenue
Revenue CMGR
Gross margin
Average transaction value
Customer LTV / paid CAC
Net working capital as % of change in sales
Burn rate / runway
Example: GoPro

Moonshots / Hard Tech / Biotech

Technical milestones accomplished
Total subject matter experts (FTEs)
Net working capital as % of change sales
Burn rate / runway
Example: Boom Supersonic
It’s most important to demonstrate that you’ve made progress towards reducing these 3 risks:
Technical risk - does the technology work?
Market risk - will people pay for this?
Execution risk - can you accomplish hard things?
Your focus here is to show that you’ve de-risked these 3 facets. This looks different for every company, but examples of how to do so include accomplishing key technical milestones or signing LOIs, pilots or contracts.
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