What metrics should I be tracking as a bootstrapped SaaS?
What metrics do people find most valuable when starting out?
I’ve never charged for an online subscription so am looking for recommendations of where to begin with metrics — tips, links, ebooks — all resources welcome!
Keep an eye on:
Monthly Recurring Revenue - all money that comes in
Monthly churn - how many people leave after month 1
Customer Acquisition Cost - if you spent $1000 on ads to get 10 customers, your CAC is $100.
Conversion from users into paying users in month 1 - the higher, the better.
First CR, then churn.
Basically both of them are important but I'd watch them in this order in the beginning.
Why?
First focus on how to get people over the line. Will help you to straighten your message, features, pricing structure ect. Depending on marketing strategy watch this in combination with ROAS.
Then optimize churn to keep them for as long as possible. Nothing is more expensive than a new client.
Also: make sure to always pick an actionable metric, something that triggers a response and focus on one metric at a time (you can change the metric, depending on the state you are in)
Following this.