Most early SaaS founders (me included, once) fall into the same trap —
we start tracking 25+ metrics way before we need to.
Fancy dashboards. Cohorts. LTV:CAC guesses. Magic numbers that look cool but mean nothing when you only have 10 paying customers.
Below ~$20K MRR, almost everything is noise.
Only three numbers actually tell you whether things are working:
MRR going up (even slowly)
If revenue isn’t moving, nothing else matters.
This is the only real “is this thing alive?” signal at the start.
If growth is inconsistent → niche too broad
If growth is flat → messaging or ICP off
If growth spikes randomly → double down on whatever caused it
You don’t need a CFO spreadsheet.
Just know: is revenue increasing because people genuinely want the product?
Do people stay? (Not sign up — stay)
Retention is the truth serum.
Founders obsess over signups, but if users vanish in week 2, the product isn’t delivering value.
Even tiny churn early is a big warning.
Talk to every churned user. Often the pattern is obvious once you hear it directly.
If retention is good → you're close to PMF
If it sucks → fix that before doing anything “growth-y”
Are new users hitting the “aha moment”?
Activation is the real gatekeeper.
If users don’t reach value fast → they won’t retain, won’t upgrade, won’t spread the word.
Examples of aha moments:
analytics tool → connects data source
AI writer → publishes first real output
project tool → creates first project + invites a teammate
If activation improves even 5–10%, MRR usually jumps without more traffic.
Everything else = noise (for now)
Before 20K MRR, you don’t need:
CAC/LTV
deep cohorts
attribution models
fancy funnels
dashboards with rainbow graphs
payback period spreadsheets
Small sample sizes make these metrics misleading anyway.
At this stage the game is simple:
Is revenue growing?
Do customers stick?
Do new users hit value quickly?
If all 3 are “yes,” you’re headed in the right direction.
If even one is “no,” fix that before chasing anything else.
Top comments (0)