If you’re a founder raising money in subscription business, whether it’s your first angel round or your third Series A pitch in front of seasoned VCs, you’ve probably felt that moment when someone on the other side of the table looks at your slide deck, politely nods, and then hits you with a challenging question: “Can you show us the numbers behind this?” and in that instant, you either have the clarity to back your vision with cold, hard, meaningful data, or you might be stuck improvising while everyone in the room wonders if you really know what drives your business. This happens a lot and because the truth is, most investors will tell you they invest in teams and ideas, but when push comes to shove, they put their money into businesses that know exactly where they’re going, why they’re growing, and what the biggest levers are to get them there.
So what are the actual numbers that make investors lean in and pay attention? They are the metrics that transform your pitch from “interesting” to “this founder really gets it”.
Let’s unpack what they look for, in clear language, with examples you can benchmark against, and the kind of structure that sets you apart from the founders who only come armed with spreadsheets or high-level vanity metrics.
Revenue: Not Just the Top Line
It’s obvious that when investors evaluate a subscription business, they want to see revenue, but they don’t want a one-off number, they want the full story.
That means they’re looking at:
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) if you’re SaaS or subscription-based, they are the predictable heartbeat of your business.
- Revenue Growth Rate: How fast you’re compounding: is it 5% MoM, 20% QoQ? They’ll benchmark that against industry norms.
- Gross Margin: Many founders skip this, but savvy investors won’t, it shows how much money you actually keep after delivering your product or service. SaaS startups often aim for around 70–80% gross margin; e-commerce might be lower.
- Revenue by Cohort or Channel: This is where a dashboard like Turboboost gives you an edge, showing revenue sliced by customer segment or marketing channel. This demonstrates you know where your best customers come from.
Retention & Churn: The Health Check Investors Love
Investors live in fear of the leaky bucket: companies that spend to acquire customers only to lose them just as quickly.
If you’re SaaS, subscription, or membership-based, you must show:
- Customer Churn Rate: Percentage of customers leaving each month or quarter.
- Revenue Churn Rate: Sometimes more important, you might lose small customers but retain or expand big ones.
- Net Revenue Retention (NRR): This is a power metric, it shows your expansion revenue from upsells or cross-sells minus churn. NRR above 100% is gold.
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The average revenue per customer across their lifespan.
- CAC Payback Period: How long it takes to recoup your customer acquisition costs. The smart investors want that to be reasonable and improve over time.
Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): Spend Wisely, Grow Efficiently
No investor wants to pour money into a marketing machine that eats cash and spits out break-even customers.
So they’ll look for:
- CAC: All-in cost to acquire a customer. This is not just ads but salaries, tools, overhead.
- CAC vs. LTV Ratio: Many VCs want to see a healthy ratio of 3:1 or better. This means you spend $1 to get $3 back.
- CAC by Channel: Show how acquisition costs differ between organic, paid, partnerships. This shows you know what’s efficient.
Pipeline & Forecasting: Can You See the Road Ahead?
Investors want to see that you’re not just looking at what’s happened but also what’s coming.
Good metrics include:
- Qualified Pipeline Value: Total expected revenue from leads that realistically might close.
- Conversion Rates: How leads move through your funnel. From MQL to SQL to deal won.
- Sales Velocity: How quickly you turn prospects into paying customers.
- Forecast Accuracy: The best teams show not just “we think we’ll do $1M next quarter” but also “last quarter we were within 5% of our forecast.”
Product Metrics: Usage Tells the Real Story
Some of the best founders impress investors by digging deeper into why they’re retaining customers, and that means showing what users actually do.
If you’re a SaaS or app business:
- Daily/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU): Classic engagement metric.
- Activation Rate: Percentage of sign-ups that reach a key milestone.
- Feature Adoption: Are customers using the features you spent money building?
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): Not perfect, but still a widely used loyalty indicator.
Marketing Performance: Which Levers Drive Growth
Don’t underestimate how often investors look at your marketing funnel and ask about your unit economics.
Show metrics like:
- Customer Acquisition by Channel: Paid, organic, partnerships, referrals.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Shows how effectively you’re turning spend into revenue.
- Virality/Referral Rate: If you have network effects or word-of-mouth loops, brag about them!
The Big Picture: Benchmarks, Context, Storytelling
Now here’s the thing: metrics are just numbers if you don’t wrap them in a clear narrative.
The founders who get the term sheets are the ones who can say:
“Here’s how our metrics compare to the best in class, here’s what they mean for our next stage, and here’s where we’re investing next.”
Whenever possible, benchmark your numbers. For example:
- For SaaS: Top quartile ARR growth for early stage can be 100%+ YoY (OpenView SaaS Benchmarks)
- For marketplaces: Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) growth, take rate, and transaction margin matter more.
- For consumer apps: DAU/MAU ratios, retention Day 1/7/30 benchmarks can come from reports like Mixpanel or AppAnnie.
If you want to dive deeper, sites like OpenView’s SaaS Benchmarks, SaaS Capital’s Index, or Lenny Rachitsky’s Substack often share investor-friendly references.
Why Structure Matters: Make It Easy to Trust You
You can have strong numbers but lose the room if your dashboards are a mess.
So build a real-time, connected view that doesn’t require three spreadsheets and a six-page legend. Use a tool like Turboboost to pull your billing data, marketing spend, sales pipeline, and retention metrics into one clear place.
It shows you’re serious, transparent, and ready to answer tough questions and it saves you from last-minute fire drills stitching numbers together.
Final Word: Data Is the New Pitch Deck
It’s cliché to say “data is king,” but for investors, your metrics really are the proof that your vision is more than talk.
So the next time someone says “Show me the numbers,” you’ll be able to show not just the top line but the engine that drives your growth, the whole story, clear as day.And when you can do that, you won’t just get polite nods: You will get that yes you came for.
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