Health of the Business

Here's a list of 9 questions you should know the answer to at your company.

Doesn't matter if you're interviewing or been there a minute.

No one wants to get hired then fired months later. No one wants a surprise.

Yes, some questions are more applicable than others per each company.

1. What's your current runway and what are your future fundraising plans?
2. What's your Net Burn Rate and how are you planning to be more efficient?
3. What's your Retention Rate (both dollar and logo) and why do people churn?
4. What's your Net Dollar Retention (or NRR)? How are you going to increase it?
5. What's your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)? What about pay back period?
6. What's your CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and NPS (Net Promoter Score)?
7. What's your monthly user growth / adoption rate, how does that influence $?
8. What's the impact to the business if you don't make this hire?
9. If you have to make cuts, how will you decide whether or not to keep this role?  

Some things to think about when asking each of these.

Runway and fundraising plansHow much $ does the company have until you run out and what's the plan leading up to that point? Will you cut people? Will you sell? Will you raise a down round?

Net Burn Rate and efficiencyHow much money is the the company spending per month in comparison to revenue being brought in? What is it being spent on, how will that change w/time?

Retention Rate/ChurnAre customers buying then leaving or staying? If they're leaving, why? What's being done to fix this? Discounts? Product offering changes?

Net Dollar Retention (or Net Revenue Retention)If and when customers renew, are they spending more money? Are there offerings to spend more money on new features/products/packages or is it a base package?

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and Payback Period How much money does a company spend to get a new customer and how long will that last? How are they focused on shortening the time it takes to get that $ back?

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and NPS (Net Promoter Score)How do customers feel about the product? Does the company even focus on this? How are they working to constantly improve this?

User growth and adoptionPeople can say a lot, but what are they actually doing? Are they using the product? Are more people using it? What happens to revenue if the there isn't usage growth?

This hire's impact to the businessThe answer to this should be very clear. You bring in X amount of dollars. You keep X amount of customers. You host X amount of demos that contributes to $.

Making cutsVery telling of how to see the writing on the wall or signs if things get worse that you should start looking for another role.  

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