Problem · Startups
The board wants pipeline metrics and all we have is a list of conversations.
The board deck has a slide titled pipeline and it contains a list of companies the founder has talked to. Investors want a number that was committed to before it was hit, a cost per meeting, and a trend. You do not have a sales team, so you cannot produce those the way a Series C company does. You can produce them another way: a 90 day ramp with deliverables in writing, reported against monthly.
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Every tier states its deliverables in the agreement. Kinetic at $10,000 a month adds a monthly qualified meeting number in writing. Paste the agreement into the board update and report against it. Pricing is published so the cost line is already in the model.
What a board actually wants to see
A committed number, the actual against it, and the cost per unit. Not a list of logos. The number can be qualified meetings held, booked demos, or cost per booked consultation depending on the business, but it has to be stated before the month starts. A founder who writes down twelve meetings and delivers nine has a pipeline conversation. A founder with a list of 30 companies has a hope conversation.
How to get a committed number without a sales team
Rent the function that produces it. The 90 day ramp on any tier states deliverables in writing: pages live by week six, campaigns at a stated cost per lead by week eight, and on Kinetic a monthly qualified meeting number set against your market size, offer, and deal value. Report each month with three lines: committed, actual, cost per meeting. By month four there is a trend, and by month six a coverage ratio, which is the slide the board wanted.
What goes in the update
Meetings committed and held, with the definition of qualified stated once. Cost per meeting including fees and spend. Pipeline created from those meetings, in dollars, with stage. Source mix: inbound content, paid, outbound. One sentence on what changed and what will change next month. Our case study clients crossed 5x to 7x their prior monthly lead average in month five against a six month baseline, and we publish the method because a board will ask how the number was computed.
Questions on this problem
The engagement is month to month after the ramp. A written number you missed is still a better board conversation than no number, and the review at day 90 says what changes.
On Critical Mass the quarterly growth review is board ready and we walk through it. On other tiers the one page report is written to be pasted.
Investors accept a committed number, a cost per meeting, and a trend. How it is staffed matters less than whether it is written down.
George Stoff, Founder and Lead Engineer
Thirty years building software, brands, and demand. On every account.