Who This Helps
You're a growth marketer with three channels running, a budget that's not infinite, and a boss who wants "the highest-impact move" by Friday. You don't need more data. You need a filter. The Founder Finance Basics Mission Pack gives you that filter.
Mini Case
Meet Priya. She runs paid search, email, and influencer campaigns. Revenue is up 12% month over month. But cash is flat. She's nervous. Using the Unit Economics Snapshot mission from the Founder Finance Basics Mission Pack, she discovers her paid search CAC is 7 days payback—safe. But her influencer channel? 45 days. That's bleeding cash. She kills the influencer spend, reallocates budget to email, and sees a 20% lift in net cash within two weeks.
Do This Now (5 Steps)
- Pull your last 30 days of channel spend and new customer counts.
- Calculate CAC per channel: spend divided by new customers.
- Find average revenue per customer for each channel.
- Divide CAC by daily revenue per customer to get payback days.
- Rank channels by payback days. Shortest wins. Reallocate budget from longest to shortest.
Avoid These Traps
- Don't average CAC across all channels. Each channel has its own story.
- Don't ignore revenue per customer. A cheap customer who buys once is worse than a pricey one who buys monthly.
- Don't wait for perfect data. Use what you have today.
- Don't forget to check payback against your runway. If your runway is 90 days, a 45-day payback is risky.
- Don't assume past performance predicts future. Run this exercise every month.
Your Win by Friday
By Friday, you'll have a ranked list of your channels by payback days. You'll know exactly which experiment to run next—the one that pays back fastest. No guesswork. Just a calm, data-backed decision. And maybe a little extra time for coffee.