Top all-time · #682
For Entrepreneurs
Personal blog · forentrepreneurs.comstartupsbusiness
For Entrepreneurs is a personal blog at forentrepreneurs.com about startups and business. Since 2009, 94 different Hacker News readers have linked it 123 times, most often “SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 12 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Skok's For Entrepreneurs blog, mainly his 'SaaS Metrics 2.0' guide to MRR, CAC, LTV and churn and its definitions, and some cite his posts on sales, marketing and customer engagement.
- Recommended for · 12 comments
- Commenters call the SaaS metrics article 'the best articulated and actionable source on this topic', 'fantastic', 'a good one', 'a good starting point', and say
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Wisdom & advice for founders & execs of B2B SaaS startups. Avoid the most common startup mistakes, learn about SaaS metrics, go-to-market, etc.
Most-linked posts?
- SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters12 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2013-01-16
- SaaS Metrics - A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2010-02-17
- Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2009-12-26
- Lessons Learned - Viral Marketing For Entrepreneurs4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-12-07
- SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters (2017)3 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2019-07-17
- How JBoss did it3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-12-28
- /saas-metrics-2-definitions/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-03-26
- Why Startups Fail3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-11-27
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-04-25
- Pacific Crest surveys 70 SaaS companies2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-06-06
What Hacker News says?
You got me beat (Biltmore's a year short of 20 years, IIRC, oh yesteryear.) I tried searching for RH and banks and other than a landing page re: RBS and a few quotes it was particularly light on details. RH crushed it with the RHEL and JBoss model[1] (pretty much the paragon of "ethical open-source commercialization" IMO). Are these banks replacing pSeries AIX boxes at branches, WebSphere instances for the consumer…
Comment linking /jboss-example/
on “Docker in Production: A History of Failure”Submitted Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition as a story · 54 points
HN discussionEvery single blog post under the SaaS tag on this site - http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas/
Comment linking /saas/
on “Being a Developer Makes You Valuable. Learning How to Market Makes You Dangerous”Submitted Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition as a story · 25 points
HN discussion80% seems to be the common 'educated guess' number: http://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-typical-gross-margin... http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2-definitions/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/10/02/running-a-saa...
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2-definitions/
on “Amazon S3 Pricing Changes Effective April 1, 2014”Submitted Lessons Learned - Viral Marketing For Entrepreneurs as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI've always found this guide[1] to be tremendously helpful to people looking for a good primer on SaaS business metrics. Important to remember here is that VC funding is not the path for everyone, and what a VC wants may not always fully align with what a business owner wants. If someone has a small SaaS product where the 3x multiple is lower, perhaps that is ok with them if it still allows them to run it as a lifes…
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2/
on “Ask HN: Profitable SaaS? How did you grow your business?”Submitted What’s your TRUE customer lifetime value (LTV)? DCF provides the answer as a story · 20 points
HN discussionThe main thing to consider is, as your customer acquistion scales, does your headcount/labor cost scale as well? If so, that should be a factor in your CAC calculation. I don't think there's one canonical formula. But here are David Skok's thoughts: "To compute the cost to acquire a customer, CAC, you would take your entire cost of sales and marketing over a given period, including salaries and other headcount relat…
Comment linking /startup-killer/
on “Ask HN: Profitable SaaS? How did you grow your business?”Submitted How sales complexity impacts startup viability as a story · 20 points
HN discussionI also recommend the JBoss Business Case Study: "Lessons from Leaders: How JBoss did it" [1] [1] http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/lessons-from-leaders/jboss-e...
Comment linking /lessons-from-leaders/jboss-example/
on “Elasticsearch Raises $70 Million”Submitted SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters as a story · 19 points
HN discussionGrowing Virally (where virality coefficient and cycle are really important[1]) is different than growing with Paying Users (where Lifetime Value (LTV) and Cost to aqcuire customers (CAC) is really important[2]) that its different than growing through very high retention rates[3]. You can achieve P/M fit with any of them. You can argue that you don't need growth. Which investors won't particularly like (in particula…
Comment linking /startup-killer/
on “Everpix, Snapchat, and the Startup Lie”Submitted Lead nurturing in SaaS, PaaS, etc as a story · 16 points
HN discussionFor understanding and calculating MRR, CAC, LTV, and cohort analysis, "SaaS Metrics 2.0" by David Skok (of Matrix Partners) [0] is highly referenced. Skok discusses viability of SaaS businesses (such as that LTV should be at least 3x CAC). A list of definitions is provided [1]. [0] http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/ [1] http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2-definitions/
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2-definitions/
on “Financial Indicators for Startups at Different Stages”Submitted SaaS Sales Compensation: How to Design the Right Plan as a story · 15 points
HN discussionWhy everyone shitting on sam lol. If you're looking for other complementary stuff, you might find these useful - https://www.ycombinator.com/library - https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/ - http://christophjanz.blogspot.com/ - https://www.kalzumeus.com/ - https://pmarchive.com/
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2/
on “How to Start a Startup (2014)”Submitted Things VCs look for in an investment as a story · 15 points
HN discussionI believe he means annual contract value. http://saasaddict.walkme.com/getting-your-saas-acv-annual-co... http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2-definitions/
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2-definitions/
on “If SaaS Products Sell Themselves, Why Do We Need Sales?”Submitted SaaS Economics as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI want to add that we religiously use a format outlined here (also mentioned in the Constant Contact video): http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics/
Comment linking /saas-metrics/
on “Ask HN: When did people start paying for your SaaS and why?”Submitted HubSpot’s Best Practices for Managing SaaS Inside Sales as a story · 6 points
HN discussionPatio11 is kinda cute in a geeky kind of way (woman in the closet about her predilection towards nerdy types...excuse the lack of PCness Patrick).... Anyhoo, on a different note, the material on hybrid sales was most interesting. I believe it was David (Skok) who mentioned how much adding just one additional touch balloons customer acquisition costs considerably. http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/business-models/the-t…
Comment linking /business-models/the-touchless-conversion/
on “Selling Your Software To Businesses - TwilioCon 2012 presentation”Submitted Multi-axis Pricing: a key tool for increasing SaaS revenue as a story · 5 points
HN discussionOne rule of thumb I read here ( http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/startup-killer/ ) is that CAC should be recoverable within 12 months of use, regardless of LTV. Do you think that's appropriate, or it needs to be even faster? I get the point cashflow limits rate of growth, of course.
Comment linking /startup-killer/
on “You Can’t Make Money Charging $1 Per Month”Submitted Optimizing your Customer Acquisition Funnel as a story · 5 points
HN discussion"Once you get a lead, if it takes even a single phone call to close them, you’re no longer doing self-service and Customer Acquisition Costs vs. Self-Service pricing is going to kill you. If you’re not doing that phone call and you’re also not closing those deals, you need to figure out of if you can solve the problem through conversion optimization or if you really do need to be speaking with customers in order to…
Comment linking /saas-metrics/
on “Don't Blindly Model Your SaaS Pricing on 37signals”Submitted How JBoss did it as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI'm seeing a lot of people in this thread balking at the $2B in losses. The thing is that aggregate profit is a terrible metric for measuring companies that have a recurring revenue model with high upfront costs (as WeWork, Uber, and many other tech startups do). The reason for this is profit doesn't factor in investments. Let's say I invest $1200 to acquire one customer who pays me $100/month. If you look at month…
Comment linking /saas-metrics-2-definitions-2/
on “WeWork’s Annual Loss Doubles to Nearly $2B Amid Rapid Expansion”Submitted SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters (2013) as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
