Your Indie SaaS Is Growing. But Is It Actually Healthy?

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The “MRR is growing” trap

A single growth number tells you almost nothing on its own. $200 of net MRR growth could be a healthy $200 of new customers — or $700 in new revenue papering over $500 of cancellations. Without the numbers underneath, you can't tell the difference, and the difference is the whole business.

Growth — are you actually moving forward?

Track MRR, ARR, month-on-month growth and a three-month average. Review monthly, not daily: real patterns only show up over three to twelve months, and daily checking mostly generates noise and anxiety.

Retention — the metric founders quietly avoid

Separate logo churn (how many customers left) from revenue churn (how many dollars left). Losing five small accounts is a very different problem from losing one big one — and only revenue churn tells you which just happened.

Unit economics — is growth costing too much?

ARPU, CAC, LTV, the LTV-to-CAC ratio and CAC payback all answer one question: do customers stick around long enough to earn back what you spent to acquire them? If not, faster growth just loses money faster.

Cash and runway — how much time do you really have?

Cash isn't an accounting detail; it's time. Track balance, monthly burn and an honest runway estimate, because that number quietly decides which decisions you can actually afford to make.

One row per month

The method is deliberately boring: one row per month, a handful of inputs — MRR, one-time revenue, new and lost MRR, customer counts, churn, spend, cash and burn — and the trends calculate themselves. Then ask four questions: what improved, what got worse, what needs explaining, and what will you change next month?

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