The four metrics that earn you a second meeting
Sample breakdown of the numbers investors actually check first, and how to present them without a forty-slide appendix.
Placeholder article shipped with the FoundryLume theme.
There is a version of the fundraising conversation that starts at slide one and a version that starts at the numbers. The second one is shorter, and it is the one that ends in a term sheet.
1. Growth, with the denominator visible
“300% growth” means nothing without the starting point. Show the absolute number beside the rate, every time. Hiding it reads as hiding it.
2. Retention, cohorted
A single churn percentage is an average across cohorts that behave nothing alike. The cohort chart is the one artefact experienced investors ask for before anything else, because it is the hardest to dress up.
If your month-six retention curve flattens, say so early and loudly. It is the strongest thing you own.
3. Efficiency, honestly calculated
Include the salaries of the people doing the selling. A customer acquisition cost that excludes the founders’ time is a number about a company that does not exist.
4. Runway, with the assumption stated
“Nineteen months” is a claim about hiring plans, not a fact about the bank account. Write the assumption next to it: 19 months at current burn; 14 months with the two planned hires.
How to present them
One slide. Four numbers. Last period beside this period. Then stop talking.
The instinct to pre-empt every objection with an appendix is the instinct that turns a twenty-minute meeting into a defensive hour. Let them ask. The questions tell you what they care about, which is worth more than the time you saved.
The thing nobody says out loud
Most second meetings are decided in the first ten minutes, on the basis of whether the founder seemed to have an accurate picture of their own company. Precision reads as competence. Vagueness reads as either not knowing or not telling — and from the other side of the table those look identical.