Fundraising
The seed metrics investors actually underwrite
Retention, payback, pipeline quality and margin honesty: the four numbers that decide a seed round, and how to present them.
7 min read
Every seed deck has growth on slide four. Very few have the four numbers an investment committee argues about afterwards.
Retention beats growth
Growth with weak retention is a marketing budget, not a business. Show logo and revenue retention by cohort, with the churn reasons written honestly beside them.
Six months of flat-to-expanding cohorts will beat a steeper top line with quiet leakage almost every time.
Payback, margin and pipeline
Give a fully loaded CAC payback, including the founder time that is currently free but will not be. Give gross margin with real delivery cost inside it.
For pipeline, name accounts, stages and honest probabilities. An investor who catches one inflated probability discounts every other number in the pack.
Take these away
- —Cohort retention is the number that survives diligence.
- —Load CAC and margin with the costs you are currently absorbing personally.
- —One inflated pipeline number devalues the entire model.
Theory is cheap. Preparation is not.
Two minutes on the readiness check will tell you which of these you actually need to act on first.