SaaS Quick Ratio is the growth-efficiency metric for subscription businesses, calculated as (New ARR + Expansion ARR) ÷ (Churned ARR + Contraction ARR). It measures whether the business is adding more recurring revenue than it's losing. A ratio above 1 means net positive growth; 4+ is considered healthy, signaling that for every $1 of ARR lost, the company is adding $4 of ARR.
The math:
SaaS Quick Ratio = (New ARR + Expansion ARR) ÷ (Churned ARR + Contraction ARR)
Example (one quarter):
| Component | ARR change |
|---|---|
| New customer ARR | +$2M |
| Expansion ARR (existing customers upgrading) | +$1M |
| Total ARR added | +$3M |
| Churned customer ARR | -$300K |
| Contraction ARR (existing customers downgrading) | -$200K |
| Total ARR lost | -$500K |
Q...
A secondary sale is a transaction where existing shareholders sell their shares to new or existing investors without the company itself raising new capital. Also called a secondary transaction, it covers founders, employees, and early investors and provides partial liquidity pre-exit while resetting the cap table without a financing event. It is distinct from a primary sale (where new shares are issued and the company receives the capital) and has become an increasingly common, sometimes-essential liquidity path for startups staying private longer.
The major secondary structures: founder secondaries (founders sell a portion of their stake, usually capped at 5 to 15 percent of holdings, common at Series B and beyond when compa...
Burn multiple is a capital-efficiency metric calculated as net burn divided by net new ARR, measuring cash burned per dollar of new ARR. The denominator can also be net new revenue. The metric was popularized by David Sacks in 2020 and became a dominant SaaS efficiency metric during the 2022-2024 capital-tightening period when investors began scrutinizing capital efficiency far more rigorously than during the 2020-2021 growth-at-all-costs era. It is the SaaS metric that captures the spirit of "capital efficiency matters now."
The calculation:
Burn Multiple = Net Burn / Net New ARR
A micro-VC is a small venture capital fund, typically $50M to $200M in fund size, that focuses on leading pre-seed and seed rounds. Distinct from traditional VC funds at $300M to $5B+ and from individual angel investors, micro-VCs write check sizes of $100K to $2M and are often founded and run by 1-3 partners who were previously operators, angels, or junior partners at larger VC firms. They occupy the institutional layer between super-angels and traditional VCs. The category emerged in the early 2010s as the cost of starting a company dropped and a market opened for institutional capital at amounts traditional VCs couldn't economically deploy.
The structural characteristics: fund size of $50M-$200M typical (anything smaller is ofte...
Annual Contract Value (ACV) is the annualized revenue value of a single customer contract, calculated as total contract value divided by contract length in years. It's used to benchmark individual deal sizes, sales rep productivity, pricing strategy, and customer-segment economics in B2B SaaS. ACV is the per-contract counterpart to [ARR] (which aggregates ACV across all contracts) and the annualized companion to [TCV] (the multi-year total).
The math:
ACV = Total contract value ÷ Contract length in years
| Contract example | TCV | Length | ACV |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year deal at $24K | $24K | 1 year | $24K |
| 2-year deal at $80K | $80K | 2 years | $40K |
| 3-year deal at $300K | $300K | 3 years | $100K |
| 1-year deal at $5K | $5K | 1 year | $5K |
ACV vs other r...
An initial public offering (IPO) is the process of selling shares of a private company to the public for the first time. Listed on NYSE, Nasdaq, or international equivalents, an IPO is traditionally the marquee exit path for venture-backed companies, with investment-bank underwriters pricing the offering, allocating shares to institutional buyers, and the company raising primary capital in the process. It is also one of the rarest exit outcomes statistically, despite getting the bulk of the press coverage.
The standard process runs roughly: file a confidential S-1 with the SEC, respond to SEC comments through 2 to 4 rounds, conduct a [Roadshow] where executives pitch institutional investors over 1 to 2 weeks, price the offering the nigh...
A referral program is the structured marketing mechanism that incentivizes existing customers to refer new customers. Incentives typically include cash payouts, account credit, product upgrades, free months of service, or two-sided rewards (both referrer and referred get the benefit), with the goal of acquiring new users at lower CAC and higher LTV than paid acquisition channels deliver. It is the explicit, incentive-driven cousin of in-product virality and one of the most studied growth mechanics in startup history.
The canonical case studies show what works and what each one optimized for. Dropbox (2008) offered 500MB of free storage to both the referrer and the referred friend, taking signups from 100,000 to 4 million in...
An angel group is an organized network of individual angel investors who pool resources, share deal flow, and often invest collectively in startups. Members conduct joint due diligence and invest through individual checks or through a pooled SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), providing institutional-quality process and a larger collective check size without the institutional structure of a venture capital fund. Angel groups bridge the gap between solo angel investing and formal VC firms, particularly active at the pre-seed and seed stages.
The major US angel groups: Tech Coast Angels (Southern California, one of the largest by member count), Keiretsu Forum (global network with chapters across the US, Europe, and Asia), Houston Angel...
Total Contract Value (TCV) is the total revenue value of a customer contract over its entire length, including all recurring years plus known one-time fees. It's used to evaluate multi-year deal economics, set sales compensation, and forecast cash collection. It's the full-life-of-contract number; [ACV] is the annualized version.
The math:
TCV = (ACV × contract length in years) + known one-time fees
| Contract example | ACV | Length | One-time fees | TCV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year SaaS subscription | $50K | 1 year | $0 | $50K |
| 2-year SaaS subscription | $50K | 2 years | $0 | $100K |
| 3-year SaaS + implementation | $50K | 3 years | $25K setup | $175K |
| 5-year enterprise deal | $200K | 5 years | $100K services | $1.1M |
When TCV matters most:
Sales compensation: sales ...
Authorized shares is the maximum number of shares a corporation is legally permitted to issue under its certificate of incorporation. The ceiling is set at incorporation and amendable only through a charter amendment requiring board and stockholder approval, with standard practice being to authorize well above current issuance to provide headroom for future financings, option grants, and corporate transactions. It is the legal ceiling on share issuance, distinct from issued shares (actually issued) and outstanding shares (issued and not repurchased).
The structural layers of share counts: