A KPI dashboard for early-stage SaaS startups

[Update 12/20/2013: I have extended the dashboard to include multiple pricing tiers and annual subscription plans. Check it out here.]

[Update 01/17/2015: There's a new company called ChartMogul (which we invested in) which makes it easy to get a real-time dashboard similar to the template below. Check it out!]

Over the last few years I've helped quite a lot of SaaS startups to create or fine-tune their KPI dashboards. While every situation is a bit different there's also a lot of overlap, which made me think that it would make sense to publish my template (not without polishing it a bit). I hope other SaaS startups will find it useful, and it will also make it easier for us to communicate what KPIs we're looking for when we talk to SaaS entrepreneurs.

Not surprisingly the dashboard looks quite similar to the financial planning sheet that I've posted some time ago. Below are two Excel screenshots, and 

here is the Google Docs version.

If you prefer the Excel version, which looks a bit nicer, click here to download it. (And if you like it, tweet it!)

The sheet contains some notes on the right side. I was going to note a few additional things here but it's gotten really late here in Europe so I'll leave that for another day. If you find any bugs, let me know and I'll fix them tomorrow morning. :)

One comment, though. Although I've developed this sheet on my own, I've learned a lot about SaaS metrics from David Skok, who I am very thankful for. David created a SaaS dashboard as well, it's a bit more sophisticated and has a slightly different focus, but it's quite similar. Check it out, and if you have not read his brilliant articles about SaaS yet I highly recommend that you do so. They are an absolute must-read for every SaaS entrepreneur.

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Geckoboard – Your Business in Real-Time

I’m thrilled to announce that together with Robin Klein at Index Ventures, Dave McClure’s 500 Startups fund and my friend and former Atlas Venture partner Alexander Bruehl I’ve made an investment in Geckoboard. Geckoboard is a beautiful real-time status board that lets businesses keep an eye on all the indicators that matter to them.

It’s a bit like “Pageflakes for businesses” (although “Chartbeat for everything else” is probably a better analogy), which is one of the reasons why investing in Geckoboard was a pretty easy decision for me. Another reason is that Geckoboard will be provided as a web-based service, with a free trial and a pay-as-you-go subscription model. Exactly the kind of SaaS business that I’ve developed a focus on in the last two and a half years. Another reason was the huge demand for the product's beta invitations (one of my favorite requests for a beta invite is this tweet, but there are many more). And of course the fact that the company was founded by an extremely sharp guy, Paul Joyce. Yes, a lot of reasons.

I also have a strong bias for startups with websites and applications that look beautiful because I think that's crucial in a world of consumerized enterprise applications. The talent and the experiences to create software that looks and feels great is rare and probably under-rated, but Paul and his team have it. Check out how awesome Geckoboard looks, no matter if you view your dashboard on a large wall-mounted screen, a computer monitor, an iPad or an iPhone.