Business Planning

Strategy meets numbers meets operations. This cluster covers business strategy frameworks (BMC, lean canvas, SWOT, blue ocean), financial modeling and projections, SaaS metrics (ARR, MRR, CAC, LTV, NRR, Rule of 40), market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM, addressable market), sales operations (pipeline, quota, cycle length), CFO-level financial discipline (working capital, AR/AP, DSO, deferred revenue), and the reporting cadences that hold it all together (board deck, OKRs, KPIs, business reviews). 87 entries.

This is the largest cluster, the home for everything quantitative about running a startup.

Strategy frameworks

• Business Plan, the traditional plan document.
• Business Strategy, the overall strategic framing.
• Business Model Canvas, Osterwalder's framework.
• Lean Canvas, Ash Maurya's lean variant.
• SWOT Analysis, strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats.
• Blue Ocean, uncontested market creation.
• Growth Strategy, how growth happens.
• Go to Market Strategy, the GTM plan.
• GTM Motion, sales motion design.
• Strategic Planning, the formal planning process.
• Annual Planning, yearly planning cycle.
• Quarterly Planning, quarterly OKR cycle.
• Scenario Planning, multi-scenario modeling.
• Milestone Planning, milestone-based execution.
• Roadmap Planning, what gets built when.

Goals and KPIs

• OKRs, Objectives and Key Results.
• KPIs, Key Performance Indicators.
• North Star Framework, operating system around the NSM.
• Dashboard, operational visibility tool.

Financial modeling and projections

• Financial Model, the spreadsheet that runs the business.
• Financial Projections, forward-looking forecasts.
• Revenue Model, how revenue is generated.
• Revenue Forecast, predicting revenue.
• Bottoms Up Forecast, building from unit assumptions.
• Sensitivity Analysis, testing assumption ranges.
• Expense Budget, planned spending.
• Pricing Model, the structure of how you charge.
• Pricing Strategy, the discipline of pricing.

Financial statements

• P and L Statement, profit and loss.
• Balance Sheet, assets, liabilities, equity.
• Cash Flow, cash in and cash out.

SaaS revenue metrics

• ARR, Annual Recurring Revenue.
• MRR, Monthly Recurring Revenue.
• Annual Contract Value (ACV), annualized per-contract revenue.
• Total Contract Value (TCV), full-contract-life revenue.
• Bookings vs Revenue, three numbers founders conflate.
• Revenue Recognition, ASC 606 timing rules.
• Deferred Revenue, collected-but-unearned balance sheet liability.
• Expansion Revenue, upsell from existing customers.
• Contraction Revenue, downgrade revenue loss.
• Logo Retention, % of customers retained.

Unit economics and efficiency

• Unit Economics, per-unit profitability.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), blended fully-loaded CAC.
• Lifetime Value (LTV), total customer-life value.
• LTV CAC Ratio, the 3:1 target.
• CAC Payback, months to recoup CAC.
• Magic Number, sales efficiency metric.
• Rule of 40, growth + margin combined health metric.
• Sales Efficiency, broader efficiency framing.
• Contribution Margin, per-unit margin.
• Gross Margin, revenue minus COGS.
• EBITDA, earnings before interest/tax/depreciation/amortization.

Market sizing

• Market Research, gathering market data.
• Market Size, sizing the opportunity.
• Market Segmentation, slicing the market.
• TAM SAM SOM, Total/Serviceable/Obtainable framing.
• Addressable Market, the segment you can actually reach.
• Industry Analysis, sector-level analysis.
• Vertical Analysis, vertical-by-vertical breakdown.

Sales operations

• Sales Pipeline, the staged deal view.
• Pipeline Coverage, the 3-4x quota target.
• Sales Cycle Length, typical days to close.
• Quota Attainment, % of reps at or above 100%.
• Sales-Led Growth, SLG counterpart to PLG.

CFO disciplines (working capital, cash, contractor docs)

• Working Capital, current assets minus liabilities.
• Accounts Receivable, money customers owe.
• Accounts Payable, money the company owes.
• Days Sales Outstanding, DSO collection efficiency.
• SaaS Quick Ratio, growth efficiency metric.
• Cash Conversion Cycle, DSO + DIO - DPO.

Customer discovery and validation

• Customer Discovery, Steve Blank's framework.
• Customer Interviews, the structured discovery method.
• Market Validation, validating demand.
• Product-Market Fit, the holy grail.
• Product Differentiation, how the product stands apart.
• Competitive Analysis, competitor mapping.
• Moat, defensible advantage.
• Defensibility, broader defensibility framing.
• Jobs Framework, Jobs-to-be-done at the planning level.
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP), minimum product to learn.
• Operations Plan, operational execution plan.

Governance and reporting

• Board Deck, the board meeting document.
• Reporting Cadence, how often metrics get reported.
• Weekly Business Review, WBR rhythm.
• Monthly Business Review, MBR rhythm.
• Quarterly Business Review, QBR for customers and internal.
• Stakeholder vs Shareholder, the distinction that matters.