The 10 Startup Metrics AI Can Track Better Than You

Your Spreadsheet Is Lying to You

Manual tracking is slow and backward-looking. AI is real-time and predictive.

The 10 Metrics

1. MRR — Separates expansion, contraction, new. Predicts next month within 5%.
2. Churn — Detects pre-churn signals 2-3 weeks before cancellation.
3. CAC — Multi-touch attribution, not last-click guessing.
4. LTV — Predictive LTV from cohort behavior, updated daily.
5. LTV:CAC — Flags when below 3:1 and traces the cause.
6. NPS — Continuous sentiment vs quarterly surveys.
7. Activation — Which onboarding steps predict retention.
8. Revenue/Employee — Flags diminishing returns from scaling.
9. Burn & Runway — Projects runway, alerts at 9, 6, 3 months.
10. Cohort Retention — Newer cohorts retaining worse = PMF erosion.

Roadmap

Phase	Metrics	Tool
Week 1	MRR, Churn, Burn	Stripe + dashboard
Week 2	CAC, LTV, Activation	Mixpanel + LLM
Week 3	NPS, Retention	Custom pipeline
Week 4	All 10 + predictions	Full AI monitoring

Start with revenue metrics. Track all 10 within a month.