Solo Founder with Stripe Only - Dying or Growing?

METRICS FOCUS FRAMEWORK FOR YOUR SAAS

Your Stage: Early Traction Validation
Primary Goal: Understand if you have a sustainable business
Current MRR: $1,200
Tools: Stripe only (no analytics platform needed!)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR NO-TOOL METRICS DASHBOARD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everything below uses ONLY Stripe. No Google Analytics, no Mixpanel.
You already have the tools you need to answer “dying or growing.”

1. MONTHLY RECURRING REVENUE (MRR) TREND - Your North Star

   Where to find: Stripe Dashboard > Billing > Overview > MRR chart
   Alternative: Customers > Active subscriptions (count × average price)

   What to track: Month-over-month percentage change

   Current: $1,200 MRR
   Target at your stage: 10-15% monthly growth (industry benchmark)

   How to check weekly:

   • Open Stripe Dashboard
   • Go to Billing > Overview
   • Note total MRR
   • Compare to 4 weeks ago (write it down in a notebook!)

   Interpretation:
   ✓ Growing 2+ consecutive months: Healthy trajectory
   ⚠ Flat 2+ months: Stagnant (not dying, not growing)
   ✗ Declining 2+ months: Shrinking - take action now

2. MONTHLY CHURN RATE - Critical Health Indicator

   Definition: % of customers who cancel each month

   Where to find in Stripe:

   • Go to: Customers > Add filter
   • Filter: Subscription status = Canceled
   • Date range: Last 30 days
   • Count the cancellations

   How to calculate:

   • Cancellations this month: [Count from filter above]
   • Customers at start of month: [Current active + Canceled - New signups]
   • Churn rate: (Cancellations ÷ Start customers) × 100

   Benchmarks for early-stage SaaS ($1-10K MRR):

   • <5% monthly: Excellent retention
   • 5-7% monthly: Normal for small SaaS
   • 7-10% monthly: High but common at early stage

   • 10% monthly: Emergency - product not delivering value

   Your specific thresholds (assuming ~24 customers at $50/month avg):

   • 0-1 cancellations/month: Excellent (<4% churn)
   • 2 cancellations/month: Acceptable (7-8% churn)
   • 3+ cancellations/month: Problem (>12% churn)

   Action triggers:

   • <5%: You have product-market fit. Focus on growth.
   • 5-7%: Monitor closely. Email canceled customers to learn why.

   • 7%: Email EVERY cancellation within 24 hours. Ask: “What made you cancel?”

   • 10%: Emergency mode. Schedule calls with churned customers.

3. NET CUSTOMER GROWTH - Simple Growth Indicator

   Definition: New customers minus churned customers

   Where to find in Stripe:

   • New customers: Customers > Filter: Created in last 30 days (count)
   • Churned customers: Customers > Filter: Canceled in last 30 days (count)
   • Net growth: New - Churned

   Health signals:
   ✓ Net > +2: Strong growth (adding >8% customers monthly)
   ✓ Net = +1: Slow growth (sustainable if consistent)
   ⚠ Net = 0: Treading water (not growing, not dying)
   ✗ Net < 0: Shrinking (you’re losing customers faster than gaining)

4. MRR COMPONENTS BREAKDOWN - Growth Quality Check

   Definition: Where your MRR change comes from each month

   Track manually in a simple spreadsheet:

   • New MRR: Revenue from new customers this month
   • Expansion MRR: Existing customers who upgraded
   • Churned MRR: Revenue lost from cancellations
   • Contraction MRR: Existing customers who downgraded

   Net MRR Growth = New MRR + Expansion MRR - Churned MRR - Contraction MRR

   What to look for:
   ✓ New MRR > Churned MRR: Growing
   ⚠ New MRR = Churned MRR: Replacing lost revenue (not growing)
   ✗ New MRR < Churned MRR: Shrinking despite acquisition
   ✓ Any Expansion MRR: Customers see value and upgrade (excellent sign)

5. REVENUE RETENTION RATE (Simple Version)

   Definition: % of revenue you keep from customers who were with you 30 days ago

   How to calculate manually:

   • Note MRR on Day 1: $1,200
   • One month later, how much from those original customers?
   • If 2 churned: Lost $100
   • If 1 upgraded: Gained $50
   • Retention: $1,150 ÷ $1,200 = 95.8%

   Benchmarks:

   • 100%: Expansion exceeds churn (world-class)

   • 95-100%: Excellent retention
   • 90-95%: Healthy
   • 85-90%: Acceptable but needs improvement
   • <85%: Red flag - serious churn problem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WEEKLY 10-MINUTE CHECK-IN ROUTINE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every Monday morning (10 minutes total):

1. Open Stripe Dashboard (2 minutes)
   → Billing > Overview
   → Write down: Total MRR: $_____, Active customers: _____

2. Count new customers this week (2 minutes)
   → Customers > Filter: Created in last 7 days
   → Write down: New customers: _____

3. Count cancellations this week (2 minutes)
   → Customers > Filter: Status = Canceled, Last 7 days
   → Write down: Cancellations: _____
   → List their names (you’ll email them)

4. Quick math (1 minute)
   → Net growth: New - Canceled = _____
   → Revenue trend: This week vs. 4 weeks ago = ____%

5. One action (3 minutes)
   → If ANY cancellation: Email them immediately
   Subject: “Quick question about your cancellation”
   → If new customer: Send welcome email, ask what made them sign up

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION: “IS MY BUSINESS DYING OR GROWING?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

After your first monthly review, you’ll know definitively:

GROWING (Healthy Business):
✓ MRR increasing 2+ months in a row
✓ Net customer growth positive (+1 or more monthly)
✓ Churn rate <7%
✓ New MRR consistently exceeds churned MRR
Action: Focus on acquisition. Your retention is solid.

STABLE (Treading Water):
⚠ MRR flat for 2+ months
⚠ Net customer growth = 0 (new customers = churned customers)
⚠ Churn rate 7-10%
⚠ New MRR barely covering churned MRR
Action: Diagnose why people are churning and why you’re not acquiring faster.

DYING (Urgent Action Required):
✗ MRR declining 2+ months in a row
✗ Net customer growth negative
✗ Churn rate >10% monthly
✗ Churned MRR exceeds new MRR
Action: Stop everything. Interview churned customers THIS WEEK.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT TO DO BEFORE SPENDING ON ANALYTICS TOOLS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Talk to your customers. These 3 conversations beat any dashboard:

1. Call your last 3 new customers (15 min each)
   Ask: “What made you sign up this week?”
   → This tells you what’s working in your acquisition

2. Email your last 2-3 cancellations (within 24 hours)
   Ask: “What would have made you stay?”
   → This tells you your biggest retention leak

3. Call your happiest/longest customer
   Ask: “What would make you recommend us to a friend?”
   → This tells you your core value proposition

These conversations give you more actionable insight than any metric.

When to add paid analytics tools:
→ When you hit $5K+ MRR (patterns stabilize)
→ When you have 50+ customers (cohort analysis becomes useful)
→ When manual tracking takes >30 minutes/week

For now at $1.2K MRR: Stripe + spreadsheet + customer conversations > $150/month tools

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ACTION PLAN: YOUR NEXT 7 DAYS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Day 1 (Today): Set up baseline
→ Open Stripe, note current MRR and customer count
→ Create simple spreadsheet
→ Set Monday morning calendar reminder: “Check metrics (10 min)”

Day 2: Historical baseline
→ Go back 3 months in Stripe
→ Fill in MRR, customers, churn for each month
→ Calculate trend: Growing, flat, or declining?

Day 3: Customer insight
→ Email your last 2 cancellations
→ Note common patterns

Day 4: New customer insight
→ Email your last 2 signups: “What made you sign up?”
→ Identify acquisition patterns

Day 7 (Monday): First weekly check-in
→ Follow 10-minute routine above

After 30 days, you’ll have crystal-clear answer: Growing, stable, or dying.