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There are a million ways to make a buck in this world, some harder than others.
I moved stones as a mason’s hand for seven summers. For ~40 hours a week, I would lift things up and put them down.
That was a hard way to make a buck; sweating my ass off in the summer sun, learning to lift with my legs, not my back.
That’s why I chose SaaS as my muse. And it just so happens, there are about a million ways to make a buck in this world as well.
You’ve probably heard it before - the concept of hunting flies vs mice vs elephants - cute analogies for all the different ways to cobble together a $100 million dollar revenue business based on your average customer size.
Why $100 million in revenue? That’s the proverbial “measuring stick” for “scale” or large enough to IPO (at least it was in, like, 2010).
I’m going to take a new spin on that hunting analogy today… a remix of sorts.
What I’ve found missing from the analysis is enough chatter regarding the respective Customer Acquisition Costs, CAC Payback Periods, and Lifetime Values associated with each type of SaaS “animal”.
Yes, you can certainly hunt 500,000,000 mice worth $2 a head, but you can’t do it by spending $5 bucks a pop (CAC) if they only live until they’re 2 years old (I know, a morbid analogy for all the big mice lovers out there).
Let’s go hunting.
(Oh, and we’ll reference some real companies along the way.)
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