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Metrics & Definitions
Every term defined, every curve shown
Why this section exists
Every term defined, including the ones still open.
A reader who finds three different subscriber numbers and no definitions assumes the worst. This page states what each metric means, how it is calculated, and where it comes from — and flags the 9 definitions the team has not yet settled, rather than papering over them.
Retention
What the attrition data actually shows
The curve below is real and derived from sixteen months of reported attrition. It is base-level survival, not cohort retention — an important distinction, and one worth making ourselves.
The gap is the finding
Observed attrition implies a 143-month lifetime. The LTV assumption implies 24 months. A six-fold gap that large is not a business result — it is a definitional one, and it points at the attrition denominator.
Measured against all registered users, attrition reads 0.70% a month. Measured against paying accounts only, the same losses read closer to 3.4% — which implies roughly a 29-month lifetime and sits almost exactly on the 24-month assumption. The most likely reading is that attrition is reported against the whole base while LTV is priced against payers.
Both figures are shown here rather than the flattering one, because the reconciliation is the honest answer and a reader who finds it unaided will assume we did not.
True cohorts
Grouped by month of first payment
True cohort retention requires grouping accounts by month of first payment and tracking each group forward. That export has not been produced yet. It is the single highest-value artifact missing from this deck, because it replaces the flat $360 lifetime-value assumption with a measurement — and the assumption is currently doing a great deal of work in the unit economics.
Two cohorts would be useful. Six would make the curve credible. The November 2025 and January 2026 cohorts now have enough elapsed months to be meaningful.
Cohort rows populate automatically from src/data/cohorts.ts once the export exists. Nothing else on this page needs to change.
Appendix
Metric definitions
Formula and source for every metric used anywhere in this deck. Open questions are marked.
Registered user
Traction Summary, 'Total Users'
Any account created on the platform, paid or free, active or not.
Cumulative accounts created, net of deletions
Settled
Monthly active user
Traction Summary, 'Active Users'
An account with at least one session in the calendar month.
Distinct accounts with ≥1 session in month
Open
Whether a session means any open, or a meaningful action such as a message sent or a school added.
New customer
Traction Summary, 'New Customers'
An account that began paying in the month.
First-payment events in month
Open
Whether this counts first payment or first registration. The two produce very different funnels.
Paying account
Derived from the Income Statement
An account with an active paid subscription at month end.
Revenue ÷ list price, as an implied figure
Open
Not directly reported anywhere. Revenue divided by the $15 list price implies ~1,741; cumulative new customers net of attrition implies ~3,208. These need reconciling.
Attrition
Traction Summary, 'Attrition'
Accounts lost during the month.
Accounts lost ÷ opening base
Open
Whether the denominator is paying accounts or all registered users. Against registered users July reads 0.43%; against paying accounts it reads roughly 3.4%. The denominator changes the story entirely.
Conversion rate
Traction Summary, 'Conversions'
New customers as a share of site visits in the month.
New customers ÷ visits
Settled
Cost of acquisition (CAC)
Traction Summary, 'COA'
Marketing spend per new customer.
Marketing spend ÷ new customers
Open
Whether this is paid media only or blended with partner and organic. July ties closely to blended ($13,200 ÷ 689 = $19.16); earlier months diverge, which suggests the definition changed.
Lifetime value (LTV)
Traction Summary, 'LTV'
Expected total revenue from a customer.
$360 per customer, applied uniformly
Open
An assumption, not a measurement. It is exactly $360 in every month of the sheet — 24 months at the $15 price. Cohort curves would replace it with something real.
Gross margin
Income Statement
Revenue less cost of service.
(Revenue − revenue share) ÷ revenue
Settled
Net cash flow
Cash Flow Statement
Operating income less capitalised software development.
Operating income − $3,500 monthly capex
Settled
Burn to ARR
Derived
Cash consumed in the closed months against current annualised revenue.
Nine-month burn ÷ (latest month × 12)
Open
Distinct from capital-to-ARR, which uses all capital ever raised. Both are shown in this deck; only the second is what an investor computes unprompted.
Coach conversation
Platform
A reply from a college coach to athlete outreach.
Distinct coach reply events
Open
The most important open definition in the deck. If a conversation means a reply, the outcome funnel reconciles at 100 contacts → 10 replies → 1 offer. If it means an outbound send, the two headline stats contradict each other by a factor of ten.
Scholarship earned
Platform
An athlete on the platform who received a scholarship offer.
Count of reported outcomes
Open
Whether this counts offers received, offers accepted, or athletes enrolled on athletic aid. Also whether partial and academic aid count alongside full athletic scholarships.