08- What will you measure?
Last updated
Last updated
Foreword by Bobby Pinero, Senior Director of Finance & Analytics
I came to Intercom right after we closed our Series A funding round. At that point it was just product people at Intercom. I think our Series A investor, Mamoon Hamid from Social Capital, looked around and said it was time to get the house in order from a nance and measurement perspective. 我们关闭了我们的A系列资金之后，我来到了Intercom。在这一点上，只是产品人在对话。我认为我们的A系列投资者，社会资本的Mamoon Hamid环顾四周，表示现在是从一个平衡和衡量角度来看待房子的时候了。
Joining at that early stage, right before we hit one million dollars in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), was really insightful. Eoghan and the founders had done a great job setting up the fundamentals, but by bringing in nance and analytics early, we could start to understand deeper questions about the business. We could gure out where that ARR was coming from. How could we think about it moving forward? Why might we need future capital? When might we need it? Who might we want to start hiring? 在这个早期阶段，就在我们每年经常性收入（ARR）达到一百万美元之前，真的很有见地。Eoghan和创始人在基础上做了很好的工作，但是通过早日引入和分析，我们可以开始了解有关业务的更深层次的问题。我们可以确定ARR来自哪里。我们怎么看待前进呢？为什么我们需要未来的资本？我们什么时候需要它？我们可能想开始招聘？
Getting these questions answered made our later rounds of fundraising easier. Your job while fundraising, whether you’re the CEO or the CFO, is to use data to build a case for why your company is going to be X times more valuable than it is today. en it’s up to you to put that data together in a compelling story. 得到这些问题的答案使我们的后期的筹款更容易。无论您是首席执行官还是首席财务官，无论您是首席执行官还是首席财务官，您的工作都是使用数据来构建一个案例，为什么您的公司将比现在的X倍更有价值。您可以将这些数据放在一个引人注目的故事中。
Every business is so diffenent. Every business has a diffenent story, is selling to diffenent segments, has diffenent market positioning and has diffenent buyers. For us, it was all about nding the metrics that proved Intercom was on the road to being successful. 每一个生意都是如此不同。每个业务都有不同的故事，销往不同的细分市场，有不同的市场定位，有不同的买家。对于我们来说，这正是所有的指标，证明Intercom正在成功的道路上。
Bringing nance and analytics in early also meant we could all get on the same page regarding metrics. One mistake I see at a lot of other early stage startups is that they don’t have well-de ned sources of truth. People start talking about churn, but what are they really talking about? Are they talking about gross Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) churn? Are they talking about net MRR churn? Are they talking about customer churn? Too often, metrics get thrown out, and it’s unclear exactly what they mean. It’s easy to spend a lot of time arguing about the actual data and numbers instead of guring out what that data and numbers are telling you. 早期使用和分析也意味着我们都可以在相关的页面上查看指标。我在许多其他早期初创公司看到的一个错误是，他们没有明确的真相来源。人们开始谈论流失，但他们真正在谈论什么？他们在谈论每月经常性收入（MRR）的流失？他们在谈论净MRR流失吗？他们在谈论客户流失吗？很多时候，指标被抛出来，它们的意思不清楚。很容易花费大量的时间争论实际的数据和数字，而不是找出数据和数字告诉你什么。
When you’re building a startup, data can be like a warm blanket on a cold night. Data is comforting. It can be trusted. It’s black and white with no apparent shades of grey. As Clay Christensen has said, “Many people view numerical data as more trustworthy than qualitative data.”
当你建立一个创业公司时，数据可能就像一个寒冷的夜晚的暖毯子。数据安慰它可以信任它是黑色和白色，没有明显的灰色阴影。克莱斯登森说：“许多人认为数值数据比定性数据更可靠。”
The reality is that data can introduce even more uncertainty into your business if not used correctly. Because humans are deciding what to measure, how to measure and why to measure, almost all data is built on biases and judgement.
事实是，如果不正确使用，数据可能会为您的业务带来更多的不确定性。因为人类正在决定要测量什么，如何测量和为什么要测量，几乎所有的数据都建立在偏见和判断之上。
That doesn’t mean you should ignore data and act on intuition alone. e point is that data is only one lens on your business. What your users are saying is another perspective. What you want to do internally is another. What makes nancial sense is another.
这并不意味着你应该忽略数据，只能直觉地行事。数据只是您业务中的一个镜头。你的用户说的是另一个观点。你想在内部做什么是另一个。什么使财务意义是另一回事。
For example, if Apple were driven by data, they would have shut down their Genius Bar after years of no activity. If Ryanair were customer driven they’d remove all their sneaky fees and charges. If Zappos were driven by margins, they’d abandon their generous returns policy.They're all just perspectives. Just because data is objective, it doesn’t mean that it guides you to the right decision. Just because it’s precise, it’s not necessarily valuable.
例如，如果苹果被数据驱动，他们将在几年没有活动之后关闭他们的天才吧。如果瑞安航空公司受到客户驱动，他们将全部清除所有费用。如果Zappos由利润率驱动，他们会放弃慷慨的回报政策。所有的只是观点。只是因为数据是客观的，它并不意味着它会引导你做出正确的决定。只是因为它是精确的，它不一定是有价值的。
Early stage companies have limited resources in terms of attention, so it’s critical to focus on data that’s important to them, not necessarily what conventional wisdom tells them to measure. For example, If you’re looking to disrupt a well-de ned market, then you should know that the success of your company won’t be measured by the same metrics used by the big players in the market. Airbnb and the Hilton group have very diffenent definitions of success, but each are valid for their business.
早期阶段的公司在注意力方面的资源有限，因此关注对他们至关重要的数据至关重要，而不一定传统的智慧告诉他们衡量。例如，如果您打算干扰市场，那么您应该知道，您的公司的成功将不会被市场上大型企业使用的相同指标所衡量。Airbnb和希尔顿集团都有非常不同寻常的成功，但每个都有效他们的业务。
Alternatively if you’re establishing a new space, or new type of product, it’s nearly impossible to know what metrics you should be optimizing for. Sure you study your signup funnel, optimize your landing page and simplify the onboarding. at’s the easy bit. e real challenge is working out how to turn signups into serious long-term customers. e relevant metrics for this only emerge over time. Until then you can pore aimlessly over your dashboards, or as we’ve always found to be more productive, start talking to customers.
或者，如果您正在建立新的空间或新型产品，几乎不可能知道您应该优化哪些指标。您可以学习注册渠道，优化您的着陆页并简化入职。就这么简单。真正的挑战是如何将注册成为严重的长期客户。相关的指标只会随着时间的推移而出现。在此之前，您可以毫无目的地在您的仪表板上进行毛孔化，或者我们一直认为更有成效，开始与客户交谈。
Regardless of your business, you’re likely going to want data to help you do two things:
无论您的业务如何，您都可能需要数据来帮助您做两件事情：
Improve your product 改善你的产品
Grow your business 拓展业务
Let’s explore these in a little more detail.
让我们更详细地探索这些。
Understanding how people interact with and use your product will help you make better decisions about how to improve it. Sometimes this is about new features, other times it’s about the smaller details. For example, did that design tweak to your signup ow have any impact on people dropping out of the funnel?
了解人们如何与您的产品进行互动和使用，将有助于您更好地决定如何改进产品。有时这是关于新功能，其他时候它是关于较小的细节。例如，这个设计调整了你的注册会有什么影响 在退出渠道的人身上
“If an analyst is using one piece of terminology, and an engineer is using another, you’ve got a problem. Great analytics requires a common language so everyone’s on the same page.” “如果一位分析师正在使用一种术语，而一位工程师正在使用另一种术语，那么您就遇到了一个问题。伟大的分析需要一个共同的语言，所以每个人都在同一页面上。 – KAREN (FOUNDED THE PRODUCT ANALYTICS TEAM)
One of the issues you face as your startup grows and begins to gain traction is that suddenly everyone has opinions about your product. You will drown in them.
您的初创公司面临的一个问题就是突然大家对产品有所了解。你会淹死在他们身上。
But not all customers are the same. All feedback is not equal. is is what one-size- ts-all surveys get wrong. Make sure you’re collecting customer feedback from the right sources.
但并不是所有的客户都是一样的。所有反馈都不相等。是所有调查都是错误的。确保您从正确的来源收集客户反馈。
If you want to improve your onboarding, talk to this week’s sign-ups while the experience is fresh in their mind. 如果你想改善你的入场券，请谈谈本周的注册，而经验是新鲜的。
If you want to know how your interface scales, talk to the people with hundreds of active projects (or galleries, libraries, etc.). 如果你想知道你的界面如何扩展，可以和数百个活跃的项目（或画廊，图书馆等）交谈。
If you want to understand the challenges in getting an entire team to switch to your app, talk to people who have just added their whole team. 如果您想了解让整个团队切换到您的应用程序所面临的挑战，请与刚刚添加整个团队的人员进行交谈。
Follow these six principles to analyze and understand the type of feedback that is most important to your business: 遵循这六项原则来分析和理解对您的业务最重要的反馈类型：
Customers who have been loyal the longest have a wealth of experience with your product that makes their opinions particularly valuable.
忠实最长的客户对您的产品有丰富的经验，使他们的意见特别有价值。
Do you have some customers who only started using your product six months ago but use it heavily? They're likely to have a lot of insightful feedback. Do you have some customers who pay signi cantly more than others? You may want to factor that in too.
你有一些客户，六个月前才开始使用你的产品，但是用量很大？你可能会有很多有见地的反馈。你有一些客户比其他客户付出更多的代价吗？你也可以考虑一下。
The customer issues that aren’t on your radar, that you’re completely unaware of, can be the most important things you need to hear. You’re more likely to hear those left- eld issues via unsolicited feedback or from open ended survey questions rather than, say, a survey with multiple choice answers.
不完全不了解您的雷达的客户问题可能是您需要听到的最重要的事情。您更有可能通过未经请求的反馈或开放式调查问题听取这些左边的问题，而不是通过多项选择答案来进行调查。
People are generally motivated to provide unsolicited feedback if they have an extreme experience. at’s why you see Yelp restaurant reviews clustered around the “amazing” and “appalling” end of the spectrum. But the night your dinner was really average? You’re probably not going to bother writing a review because, well, what’s the point? It’s not a very interesting story is it? When it comes to customer feedback you’ve probably got a large group in the middle who think your product is “fine”. These customers typically stay silent but they could have also have useful feedback for you. If you’re smart, you’ll nd ways to tease it out.
如果他们有极端的经验，人们通常有动力提供未经请求的反馈。为什么你看到Yelp餐厅评论聚集在“惊人”和“令人震惊”的频谱结束。但晚上你的晚餐真的很平均吗？你可能不会打扰撰写评论，因为，有什么意义？这不是一个非常有趣的故事吗？在客户反馈方面，您可能在中间有一大群人认为您的产品是“罚款”。这些客户通常保持沉默，但也可以为您提供有用的反馈。如果你聪明，你会找到方法来挑逗出来。
If 80% of your customer feedback in the last month is telling you that the “improvement” you made recently to your core product has broken people’s work ow, you should listen up. e overall volume of feedback about a single issue relative to other issues matters. It will also protect you from “fre-cently” bias, where people assume things they hear frequently or recently have the greatest importance.
如果上个月80％的客户反馈告诉您，最近对您的核心产品所做的“改进”已经破坏了人们的工作，您应该倾听。关于单个问题的总体反馈量相对于其他问题重要。它也将保护您免受“频繁”的偏见，人们通常会认为他们经常听到的东西或者最近才有重要的意义。
User issues are often dismissed on the grounds that, “Oh we’ve heard that for ages”. Maybe you’re planning to nally address it in a big redesign next year. Or more likely this request has become so repetitive that it’s now trite, a sort of dull whine that nobody listens to anymore. Either way, this kind of feedback is really worth listening to. It’s an indicator that you haven’t got the basics right, and that’s something you have to address as a priority rather than ignore.
用户问题经常被解雇，理由是“我们已经听说过年龄了”。也许你打算在明年进行大的重新设计。或者更可能的是，这个请求已经变得如此重复，现在已经是诡计了，这种无聊的呜咽声让人不再听。无论哪种方式，这种反馈真的值得一听。这是一个指标，您没有获得正确的基础知识，这是您必须处理的重点，而不是忽视。
Some feedback is worth listening to purely because of the severity of the problem the customer is experiencing. is is high stakes feedback. Perhaps you pushed a release that had a security loophole, or your product has accidentally put your customers’ privacy at risk. When reviewing customer feedback, try to build a mechanism that alerts you to this very occasional but high stakes feedback so you can take action straightaway.
纯粹是因为客户正在经历的问题的严重性，一些反馈是值得的。是高风险的反馈。也许你推出了一个具有安全漏洞的版本，或者您的产品意外地将您的客户的隐私置于危险之中。在审查客户反馈时，尝试建立一种机
The world of startups is full of “golden rules” about dated metrics like bounce rate, time on site, pages per visit and more. For modern software products, these rules are bullshit. It’s not that they’re incorrect, it’s just that these rules o er information that isn’t actionable and doesn’t matter to your business. Google’s Avinash Kaushik puts it best, “ e average conversion rate in the United States of America whether you’re selling elephants or iPods, will be 2%”.
初创公司的世界充满了关于日期指标的“黄金规则”，如跳出率，网站上的时间，每次访问的页面等等。对于现代软件产品，这些规则是胡说八道的。这不是他们不正确，只是这些规则是不可信的信息，对您的业务无关紧要。Google的Avinash Kaushik表现最佳，“无论您是卖大象还是iPod，美国的平均转换率都将达到2％”。
We’ve found three metrics to be fundamental to understanding the overall health of a product:
我们发现三个指标是了解产品整体健康状况的基础：
Intent to use: e actions customers are taking that tell you de nitively they intend to use your product e.g. customer has imported custom data. 意图使用：客户采取的行动，告诉你，他们打算使用你的产品，例如客户已经导入了自定义数据。
Activation: The point when a customer gets real value from your product e.g. customer has invited ve teammates in seven days. 激活：当客户从您的产品获得真正价值的时候，客户在七天内邀请了我们的队友。
Engagement: How much, how often and how long customers continue to gain value from the product e.g. the number of photos uploaded per user per day. 参与度：客户继续获得价值的多少，多久以及多长时间，例如每位用户每天上传的照片数量。
These metrics mean very diffenent things to diffenent businesses. A $99 B2B SaaS app de nes engagement very diffenently from an ecommerce website. So rather than xating on what others are measuring, take time to understand which metrics are most important for your business.
这些指标对于不同的业务意味着非常不同的事情。一个99美元的B2B SaaS应用程序与电子商务网站非常相关。所以，而不是放在别人所测量的位置上，花时间了解哪些指标对您的业务至关重要。
When a VC comes knocking with questions about your business, you need to have your house in order. Know the di erence between your gross churn and your net churn.
当一个风险投资公司遇到有关您的业务的问题时，您需要让您的房屋顺利进行。了解您的总体流失与净流失之间的差异。
It takes time to identify and understand each of these metrics in the context of your business. More importantly, it takes deep analysis and constant experimentation to understand how you can impact them. You don’t want to be considering these metrics for the first time when you get a query about them from a potential investor. Plan accordingly. If you don’t already have an analyst on your team, seriously consider hiring one that can own this.
在业务背景下，需要时间来确定和了解这些指标。更重要的是，需要深入分析和不断的实验来了解如何影响它们。当您从潜在的投资者那里获得有关这些指标时，您不想第一时间考虑这些指标。相应地计划。如果您的团队中还没有分析师，请认真考虑聘请可以拥有的分析师。
With today’s analytics tools, it’s easy to measure hundreds, if not thousands of di erent metrics for your business. Cutting through all the noise to determine the most important or insightful metrics can be quite a challenge. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are the most important nancial metrics your startup should measure. (It’s worth noting this section applies only to SaaS startups. If you’re running an ecommerce business, your metrics will likely be different.)
通过今天的分析工具，您可以轻松地衡量数百种，即使不是数千种不同的业务指标。切断所有的噪音来确定最重要或有见地的指标可能是一个相当大的挑战。不用担心，我们已经覆盖了你。以下是您的启动应衡量的最重要的财务指标。（值得注意的是本节仅适用于SaaS初创公司，如果您正在运行电子商务业务，您的指标可能会有所不同）
Ultimately, your valuation and the amount that you’re able to raise will be calculated from a combination of: 最终，您的估值和您能够筹集的金额将由以下组合计算：
Your current MRR 您当前的MRR
How quickly you’ve gotten there 你在那里有多快
The rate at which you’re adding to it 您添加的速度
The rate at which you’re losing it 你失去的速度
It’s as simple as that.
就这么简单。
Here’s a summary of how you should present this:
以下是您应该如何介绍这一点的总结：
MRR retention will make or break the growth of your SaaS business. ere’s no point lling the bucket if it’s full of holes. You need to show retention in a few ways. MRR保留将使您或您的SaaS业务增长。如果充满洞，没有任何意义。您需要以几种方式显示保留。
Gross Churn: Of all the committed revenue you had last period (month/quarter/year), how much walked out the door this period? 总流失：在上一期（月/季/年）的所有承诺收入中，这段时间内走出多少门？
Net Churn: Of all the committed revenue you had last period, how much walked out the door this period net of upsells? 净流失：在上一期的所有承诺收入中，这个时期的门槛是多少？
Cohort Retention: Churn metrics as described above are a great snapshot into the business at a point in time. However, it’s a blended average of all customers at diffenent points in their lifecycle. Retention by cohort gives you a longitudinal view of how good you are at keeping, upselling and cross-selling any given customer and how that has evolved over time. In other words, for every dollar you earn today, how many dollars do you have six months later, one year later, and so on. 队列保留：如上所述的流失度量指标是在一个时间点上的业务快照。然而，它是所有客户在其生命周期中的不同点的混合平均值。通过队列保留，您可以纵向查看您在保留，加销和交叉销售任何特定客户以及随着时间发展的进展情况。换句话说，对于今天赚到的每一美元，你六个月后，一年以后还有几美元等等。
This boils down to how you nd and acquire new customers. Ask yourself: 这归结为如何发现和获取新客户。问你自己：
How have tra c/lead sources changed over time and what’s driving that? Is it repeatable? 随着时间的推移，交通/潜在客源如何发生变化？可重复吗
How many unique visitors do you get on a monthly basis, and how many of them are from organic tra c sources versus paid? 您每月获得多少独特访问者，其中有多少来自有机交通来源与付费？
You need to prove the economics of your acquisition strategy. It’s important to calculate the following for your overall business.
您需要证明您的收购策略的经济性。为您的整体业务计算以下内容很重要。
CAC: Cost of acquiring a customer 收购客户的成本
LTV: Customer Lifetime Value, or how much revenue a customer is worth over the entire time they are a customer 客户终身价值，或客户在整个客户期间值得多少收入
Contribution Margin: Revenue from customer minusvariable costs associated with a customer 贡献保证金：客户收入减去与客户相关的可变成本
Payback period: e time it takes you to recover your CAC 投资回收期：您需要您恢复CAC的时间
Have all three financial statements – income statement, balance sheet and cash ow – up to date, as well as a copy of your cap table prepared.
拥有所有三个财务报表 - 损益表，资产负债表和现金流量，以及您准备的盖表的副本。
Your income statement will be the most scrutinized. Keys to the income statement include:
您的损益表将是最受审查的。损益表的关键包括：
Gross Profit is calculated as Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) e.g. hosting, support, infrastructure, etc. Great SaaS companies have healthy GP margins at 70% or above.
Gross Profit is calculated as Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) e.g. hosting, support, infrastructure, etc. Great SaaS companies have healthy GP margins at 70% or above.
毛利计算为收入 - 销售成本（COGS），例如托管，支持，基础设施等。大型SaaS公司的GP利润率保持在70％以上。
Lay out all non COGS related spend into three buckets: Research and Development (R&D)
将所有非COGS相关支出分配到三个方面：研发（R＆D） Sales and Marketing (S&M) 销售和营销（S＆M） General and Administrative (G&A) 总务和行政（G＆A）
The proportions of each will tell the story of where you’ve invested to build your business.
每个人的比例将讲述您投资建立业务的故事。
The calculation here is: Revenue - COGS - R&D - S&M - G&A
这里的计算是：收入 - COGS - 研发 - S＆M - G＆A
Investors want to see how much you burn on a monthly basis and how many months remain with the cash you have in the bank.
投资者希望看到您每月燃烧多少，以及您在银行拥有的现金剩余多少个月。
While most investors take your rosy projections with a grain of salt, they still want to understand how you’re planning for the future. A detailed projection for the next 12 months with high level assumptions applied to the next two to three years is a good place to start. You want to project both your MRR build and your income statement.
虽然大多数投资者用盐水预测您的玫瑰色，但他们仍然希望了解您如何计划未来。未来两到三年的高水平假设下一个12个月的详细预测是开始的好地方。您想要计划您的MRR构建和您的损益表。
Be prepared to talk through the assumptions used to build out these projections. ese assumptions should be things that you’re able to point to with con dence, particularly the closer they are on the horizon. Also important to note: the projections you share in this situation will most likely be what you’re measured against should the deal close.
准备谈谈用于制定这些预测的假设。ese假设应该是你能够指出的事情，特别是他们在更远的地方。同样重要的是要注意：在这种情况下，你所分享的预测很有可能是当交易结束时你所测量的。
The final piece of advice here is to make sure data doesn’t become a false god. Data can be a powerful tool for any startup, but a lot of times it tells
这里的最后一条建议是确保数据不会成为虚假的神。数据可以是任何启动的强大工具，但是它可以说是很多次