SaaStr 680: The Most Important SaaS Metrics of 2023 with monday.com Co-Founders and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin

This podcast episode delves into evolving SaaS metrics and introduces advanced measurements that assess customer acquisition, retention, and maintenance. It underscores the importance of customer centricity during economic downturns and highlights challenges founders face in maintaining it as their companies become public. Additionally, the episode discusses prioritizing long-term metrics like viral conversion coefficients and net retention rate. It differentiates between gross and net retention rates, emphasizing the importance of segmentation to analyze customer behavior and improve strategies. Finally, it emphasizes the significance of Net Revenue Retention (NRR) for SaaS companies and the L4M (Last 4 Months) model as a financial planning tool for founders. Takeaways • SaaS metrics have evolved over the past decade and companies should use advanced metrics that capture nuances of customer acquisition, retention, and maintenance costs. • SaaS companies must balance short-term marketing strategies with longer-term customer retention efforts to maintain a healthy ratio of revenue growth to new customer growth. • It is essential to maintain customer centricity during economic downturns, avoiding unethical practices like aggressive price increases and data lock-in. • Founders must resist prioritizing short-term metrics and quarterly targets at the expense of customer happiness as companies transition to public markets. • Select metrics such as viral conversion coefficients, net retention rate (NRR), and customer satisfaction can measure a company's long-term health and sustainability. • Gross retention rate (GRR) is more important than net retention rate (NRR) as issues and game-playing are difficult to conceal when aiming for top decile logo retention in GRR. • Segmenting SaaS metrics by customer size or other factors can uncover trends and variations, enabling targeted marketing, sales, and customer success strategies. • Upsell opportunities can enhance net dollar retention (NDR) by providing additional value to customers through functionalities and features. • L4M (Last 4 Months) analysis is a simple yet effective financial planning tool for founders, offering insights into cash flow and burn rate over the recent past. • Regular review and adjustment of financial data using the L4M model can help startups avoid overspending, make informed decisions, and secure long-term success.