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The Metrics That Actually Matter:
What Startup Founders Should Obsess Over

Vanity Metrics vs. Real Growth Indicators

Not all numbers are created equal. Many founders get caught up in vanity metrics—things that look impressive on pitch decks but don’t actually reflect business health. Page views, social media followers, and app downloads might feel good, but if they’re not converting into paying customers or engaged users, they’re just noise. Instead, focus on metrics that directly impact revenue, retention, and scalability. The real question is: Are these numbers driving sustainable growth?

Revenue Isn’t Just Revenue—Know Your Numbers

Yes, revenue matters, but not all revenue is created equal. Are you tracking Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) if you’re in SaaS? Are you paying attention to Gross Margin, or are costs eating away at your profits? And don’t forget about Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) vs. Lifetime Value (LTV)—if it costs you more to acquire a customer than they bring in over time, you’ve got a scaling problem. Digging into these numbers helps you make smarter decisions about pricing, growth, and sustainability.

Customer Retention: The Ultimate Health Check

Acquiring new customers is expensive, but keeping them? That’s where real growth happens. Churn rate (how many customers leave over a given period) is one of the most important metrics for any startup. A high churn rate means you're leaking revenue, no matter how fast you're signing new customers. On the flip side, Net Revenue Retention (NRR)—which factors in upsells, cross-sells, and renewals—tells you whether your existing customers are actually increasing in value over time. If you’re focused only on acquisition and ignoring retention, you're setting yourself up for a treadmill that never stops.

Cash Flow: The Lifeline of Your Business

Profitability might not be an immediate goal for many startups, but burn rate and runway should always be top of mind. How long can you operate before running out of money? Many startups fail not because they don’t have a great product, but because they mismanage cash flow. Keep a close eye on your operating expenses and ensure you're not growing at the expense of sustainability. If you’re constantly fundraising just to stay afloat, you don’t have a startup—you have a ticking clock.

Operational Efficiency: Scaling Without Breaking

As your company grows, inefficiencies creep in. Are you measuring Revenue per Employee (RPE) to see if your team is productive? Are your sales cycles getting longer, making it harder to close deals? Tracking operational metrics ensures that as you scale, your processes don’t collapse under pressure. Founders who don’t measure efficiency often find themselves burning resources on things that don’t move the needle—leading to bloated teams, slow decision-making, and wasted capital.

Making Metrics Actionable

Numbers are only useful if they drive action. The key is not just tracking metrics but knowing what to do when they shift. Are your acquisition costs going up? Maybe your messaging needs work. Is churn creeping higher? Time to dig into customer feedback. The best CEOs don’t just look at dashboards—they use them to make strategic decisions that keep the business growing. So ask yourself: Are you tracking the numbers that actually move your startup forward, or just the ones that look good in an investor update?

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Fractional Openings

Chief Executive Officer @ ExpenseAnywhere
Chief Compliance Officer @ TheKiddoSpace
Chief Marketing Officer @ Crop.Photo
Chief Marketing Officer @ Deccan AI
Recruiting Leader @ fjorge ==========================

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Hiring Predictions: 2025

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Startup Story

Roboflow

Roboflow is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform co-founded by Brad Dwyer and Joseph Nelson, designed to simplify the development of computer vision applications. Serving a community of over 500,000 developers, Roboflow streamlines the complex processes involved in image-based machine learning projects.

The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools for managing image data, including annotation and labeling, preprocessing, and augmentation. Developers can effortlessly convert annotation file formats and train computer vision models with a single click. Roboflow also facilitates seamless deployment of models via API or directly to edge devices, ensuring that applications can operate efficiently in various environments.

Roboflow's versatility is evident in its wide range of use cases, such as inventory tracking, oil spill detection, pill counting, garden monitoring to deter pests, and identifying specific ingredients in food items like sushi. The platform supports deployment on edge devices like NVIDIA Jetson and Raspberry Pi, and integrates smoothly with cloud services including AWS, GCP, and Azure. It is compatible with popular machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow and PyTorch, as well as annotation tools such as LabelBox and CVAT, making it a flexible solution for diverse computer vision projects.

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EVENTS

🎪1 Million Cups Des Moines
📍Frontier Coworking
🗓️February 19th
⌚️ 8:00 - 9:00

🎪TechBrew: AM
📍West End Architectural Salvage
🗓️March 13th
⌚️ 8:00 - 9:00

🎪TechStars Startup Weekend DSM
📍Maple Studios
🗓️March 28th - 30th

🎪2025 Iowa Technology Summit
📍Community Choice Credit Union Center
🗓️April 7th-8th

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