It's all dummy data which makes the metrics sometimes look a little wacky, but I tried to model everything based on real-world examples I've seen.
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is high, but so is the ARPC (Average Revenue per Customer), so you can't just look at the one number in isolation to see if it's realistic or not.
In this case, I'd look at the CAC Payback time and the CAC:LTV ratio to see if these acquisition costs would be realistic in any kind of a company. The payback time climbs from 6-8 months to 19 over time, which is a pretty clear indication that this is unlikely to be a bootstrapped company. They just wouldn't have the capital to sustain it long-term, unless they sell mostly multi-year deals paid in advance.
For a VC Company, 19 months would be on the high end for sure, but not unheard of. Dated, but still great article from Tom Tunguz[1] says the SaaS median is 15 months, indicating there are a lot of companies with longer payback times.
Finally, if you look into the future projections you'll notice that the payback time grows to 26 months. Unless you have clear understanding why this should happen, this is more likely an indication that your forecast isn't very good. (Which, I'm realizing typing this, is quite ironic). Either your revenue growth is not fast enough in your forecast, or if it is the maximum you think you can do, your S&M spending is too high and your business just isn't sustainable. Or something else.
From the link above, how did they calculate the 7.8M CAC with a 12 month payback period? I assume it is based on the data below, but how did the number end up to 7.8M:
"Let’s take a hypothetical example of a SaaS company at $625k in ARR, growing at 15% per month. The company has 25 customers each paying $25,000 and operates with an 80% gross margin. The company bills monthly."
When I looked at his example more closely, the numbers didn't make sense to me either.
I always assumed he had calculated them correctly, but looks like his projection of $2.7MM ARR in 12 months might be a typo ($625k starting ARR with 15% annual growth is $3.3M, his figure is 20% less. Maybe he accidentally calculated Gross Margin run rate).
Here's a similar example illustrating the difference between 12 month and 6 month payback at different growth rates. The cells highlighted in yellow are inputs, so you can change the numbers and see how the capital requirements will change for the year.
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is high, but so is the ARPC (Average Revenue per Customer), so you can't just look at the one number in isolation to see if it's realistic or not.
In this case, I'd look at the CAC Payback time and the CAC:LTV ratio to see if these acquisition costs would be realistic in any kind of a company. The payback time climbs from 6-8 months to 19 over time, which is a pretty clear indication that this is unlikely to be a bootstrapped company. They just wouldn't have the capital to sustain it long-term, unless they sell mostly multi-year deals paid in advance.
For a VC Company, 19 months would be on the high end for sure, but not unheard of. Dated, but still great article from Tom Tunguz[1] says the SaaS median is 15 months, indicating there are a lot of companies with longer payback times.
Finally, if you look into the future projections you'll notice that the payback time grows to 26 months. Unless you have clear understanding why this should happen, this is more likely an indication that your forecast isn't very good. (Which, I'm realizing typing this, is quite ironic). Either your revenue growth is not fast enough in your forecast, or if it is the maximum you think you can do, your S&M spending is too high and your business just isn't sustainable. Or something else.
[1] https://tomtunguz.com/payback_period_cash/