The Fund I work for has a big spreadsheet for each company that gathered around 5-10 metrics, we call it the TOTEM and every company has one, and in theory should be filling it out weekly.
In reality companies rarely fill out their TOTEM and even fewer appreciate what its attempting to do.
So Here’s my attempt at making a more simple and universal total that any business can use.
Note, this totem isn’t meant to replace your evaluation of the numbers, simply gather the most crucial ones. Tools don’t replace technique and knowhow.
Key Numbers, to be collected weekly –
GMV
Revenue (net of GMV)
New customers/users
Key Numbers, to be collected monthly/ quarterly –
Expenses/ OPEX
Current cash balance
Number of employees
1st layer Derivative data –
Week on week GMV/ Rev growth rate (%)
Profit (%)
Burn
ARPU
Cost per user
Cost per new user
Revenue per employee
Net Dollar Retention
2nd layer derivative data –
Rule of 40 % – growth % + profitability % > 40% (is good)
Burn rate
Burn multiple
Runway
Other root level data sets that are nice to have –
- Customer acquisition cost
- (Time defined) churn rate