Using KPIs to Tell a Story Investors Actually Believe

Most founders drown investors in data and wonder why the check never comes. The problem is rarely the metrics themselves — it's the story the metrics are failing to tell. Martins Lasmanis, co-founder of Supliful (a white-label product platform for brands and influencers that raised a $2M seed round), learned this firsthand while navigating a fundraise in a market where his unit economics didn't fit a tidy narrative.

VCs are looking for evidence of product-market fit, a credible growth path, and eventual profitability. They want to see that you command your numbers — not just recite them. But not all metrics are equally useful, and at the wrong stage, the wrong KPI actively hurts your case.

Target the next rung on the Ladder of Proof

Every startup sits somewhere on the Ladder of Proof — a framework from NFX's James Currier for assessing whether a company is venture-fundable. The rung you're on determines which metrics actually matter right now.

The KPIs you present should always aim to move you to the next rung on the ladder, not the one five steps ahead.

If you're still validating early retention, presenting gross margin projections is a distraction — for you and for the investor. Lock in what proves the next step, then shift focus when you climb.

Show fewer metrics, not more

When asked for KPIs, many founders produce a slide deck with 20 numbers. That quantity signals confusion, not rigor. Investors parse it as a founder who doesn't know what actually matters.

The better move is to identify one to three metrics that prove adoption and real value from your product. These are sometimes called the North Star Metric or the One Metric That Matters. They should be specific, measurable, actionable, and directly tied to your business model.

Classic examples:

• Airbnb — nights booked
• Facebook — daily active users
• Slack — weekly active users sending messages

One tight, credible number beats a wall of loosely related data every time.

Show trends and cohorts, never snapshots

A total user count is nearly meaningless in isolation. VCs want to see how metrics move over time and across user groups. That's where your growth rate, retention curve, CAC, LTV, and payback period become legible.

What to show instead of raw totals:

• New users acquired per month
• Week-1, month-1, and month-3 return rates for each cohort
• Revenue generated per cohort over time
• Cost to acquire each cohort

Visualize these with charts. A rising retention curve tells a better story than any headline number.

Explain the drivers, not just the outputs

Numbers without context are just noise. What separates a confident founder from a shaky one is the ability to explain why a metric looks the way it does — and what you're doing about it.

How to frame a weak metric honestly:

• Name the cause — seasonality, a product gap, competitive pressure, market timing
• Name the action — the feature you're shipping, the channel you're cutting, the pricing test you're running
• Name the signal you'll use to know it's working

If your CAC is high, walk through how you're optimizing channels, testing acquisition strategies, or building referral loops. If churn is elevated, show that you've diagnosed it and have a thesis for fixing it.

Benchmark against peers

VCs don't evaluate your metrics in a vacuum. They compare you against other companies at your stage and in your category. If you're below the benchmark, they'll notice — the question is whether you've noticed too.

For SaaS, common reference points investors use:

• Monthly churn below 5%
• LTV/CAC ratio above 3×
• Net Promoter Score above 40

If your numbers sit outside these ranges — above or below — explain why. Different customer segments, price points, and sales motions all affect the comparison. Owning that context signals maturity.

Be honest about what you don't have

VCs know building a company is hard. They are not expecting perfection; they are trying to identify potential. Founders who hide weak metrics or paper over gaps with aggressive assumptions tend to get found out — and once trust is gone, it doesn't come back.

Be direct about where you're struggling and demonstrate that you're learning from it. A founder who says "here's what's broken and here's what we're doing about it" is far more fundable than one who pretends everything is tracking to plan.

Transparency isn't a concession. It's the fastest way to build credibility with an investor who has seen every version of the pitch you're not giving them.

Communicating difficult metrics is a skill, not a gift. The founders who raise in hard conditions are usually the ones who have done the work to understand their numbers one level deeper than everyone else — and who can translate that understanding into a story an investor can actually act on.

Written by Jason Kirby