The SaaS Metrics that Matter Most with Jennifer Francis, Capital Angel Network
The Capital Angel Network is a group of angel investors in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Their goal is to grow the region’s entrepreneurial community with the intention of making it one of the best regions to start a business and gain access to investment opportunities.
Motivated by this goal, the Capital Angel Network has invested in a number of Canadian SaaS companies including:
MindBridge – The platform is the world’s first and only AI powered auditing solution that leverages advanced machine learning and AI techniques to augment human capacity and cope with the enormous amounts of financial data that exist within organizations.
Rewind – Protects data through backing up, restoring, and copying the critical information stored in SaaS applications.
Welbi – Simplifies the process of creating and delivering resident-tailored programs for recreation teams in older adult communities.
In terms of key metrics that pre-revenue and early stage SaaS CEOs should focus on, Jennifer has 6 top picks. These metrics aim to ensure that the business model makes sense given the context of the target market and go to market channels. Specifically, Jennifer calls out three main takeaways.
- Customer Acquisition Cost must reflect the price of the service. It is not sustainable to have a high CAC when the price of the service is low.
- Time to Onboard is key. It’s not uncommon for early-stage companies to underinvest in onboarding and retention. If it takes too long to onboard new customers, their churn risk increases dramatically.
- Every SaaS company should track engagement metrics. How often are users logging in, how many features are they using, how engaged are they with the solution.
The key metrics Jennifer recommends CEOs focus on are:
Cost of Service – for example SaaS hosting
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Payback Period
Time to Onboard / Time to Value
Usage/ Engagement ie Daily Active Users (DAU), Weekly Active Users (WAU), Monthly Active Users (MAU)
About SaaSCan
SaaSCan was created to bring deep experience in customer-centric growth and SaaS metrics to Canada’s growing SaaS ecosystem.
SaaSCan for Startups services were born in the early days of COVID-19 to help Canadian SaaS companies understand COVID’s impact on churn and retention. We have expanded to provide enablement for SaaS startups on SaaS metrics and benchmarks.
SaaSCan for Early Stage Growth services emerged from the need startups have to adopt a customer-centric approach as they grow, so they can deliver ongoing value to existing customers and optimize key SaaS retention, expansion, and efficiency metrics.
SaaSCan for Later Stage Growth services empower SaaS companies to be customer-centric and metrics-savvy at scale, further optimizing customer retention, SaaS metric performance, and company valuation.
To learn more about our Advisors, Partners, and Services, please visit www.saascan.ca.
