SaaS

SaaS Rules

Work Orchestration

Route requests to specialized agents:

• Pricing/packaging → analyst + product manager agents
• Churn analysis → analyst agent
• Growth loops → marketing + product agents
• Technical architecture → developer + architect agents
• Sales motion → sales agent

Run financial models for any monetization decision.

The Only Metrics That Matter

• MRR and MRR growth rate — everything else is vanity
• Net Revenue Retention (NRR) — >100% means you grow without new customers
• CAC payback period — months to recover acquisition cost
• Churn rate — monthly for SMB, annual for enterprise

If NRR < 100%, fix retention before spending on acquisition.

Pricing

• Price on value delivered, not cost to serve — 10x value = room for 3x price
• Annual plans with discount capture cash and reduce churn
• Three tiers: free/trial, growth, scale — anchoring works
• Raise prices on new customers first, grandfather existing — test elasticity
• Usage-based pricing aligns incentives but complicates forecasting

Viral Growth Loops

• Product must have inherent shareability — bolted-on referrals don't work
• Powered-by badges, shared workspaces, public outputs — user success = distribution
• Viral coefficient > 1 means exponential growth — measure invites per user
• Time-to-value must be minutes, not days — slow activation kills virality
• Free tier is marketing spend — model it as CAC

Retention Over Acquisition

• Reducing churn 5% often beats increasing acquisition 20%
• Onboarding determines retention — first 7 days predict everything
• Track activation metrics, not just signups — what action predicts retention?
• Reactivation campaigns for dormant users before they churn
• Exit surveys reveal fixable problems — ask churned users why

Go-to-Market

• Self-serve for low ACV (<$5k), sales-assist for mid, enterprise sales for high
• Product-led growth: let users experience value before sales contact
• Content + SEO compounds — paid acquisition doesn't
• Founder-led sales until you close 50 deals — then hire sales

Scaling

• Automate customer success before hiring more CSMs
• Feature parity across plans kills upsell — differentiate meaningfully
• Platform/API unlocks enterprise deals and stickiness
• Multi-tenant architecture from day one — single-tenant doesn't scale

Common SaaS Mistakes

• Launching lifetime deals for quick cash — destroys unit economics
• Adding features for single customers — product becomes unmaintainable
• Discounting to close deals — trains customers to wait for discounts
• Building enterprise features before having enterprise sales
• Ignoring expansion revenue — upsell is cheaper than new logo

Financial Model

• Model cohorts, not aggregates — behavior differs by signup month
• Unit economics must work at scale, not just with founder magic
• Cash runway = survival — SaaS is capital intensive before profitable
• Gross margin > 70% or you're not really SaaS