Numbers are not the point
I am going to show you twelve numbers in fifteen minutes. Before I do, I want to say something that sounds strange coming from a finance lead: the numbers are not the point.
The numbers are evidence. They are the footprints. The thing that made the footprints is a set of decisions that people in this room made, and the decisions are what we should be talking about.
Three numbers that matter
Revenue: up 22%. The interesting part is where. 71% of the growth came from customers we already had in 2023. That means we did not win a year of new business; we won a year of not losing people. That is a completely different skill, and it belongs to the support and product teams, not sales.
Churn: down from 14% to 9%. This is the number I am proudest of and it is the least glamorous. It came from a thousand unexciting fixes. It also has a warning inside it: our remaining churn is concentrated in month two, and it is concentrated in one onboarding step. That is next year's whole story.
Gross margin: 68%, down 4 points. This one is deliberate. We spent the four points on infrastructure that will not pay back until 2027. I want to say that plainly, in advance, so that when the margin looks flat again next year nobody panics and cuts it.
One number I want to argue about
Our average deal size is up 31%. I am going to argue that this number is partly bad news.
It is up because we stopped serving small customers well. We did not fire them; we simply built everything for the large ones and let the small ones drift. Short term, the average goes up and the chart looks great. Long term, small customers are how large customers find you, and we have quietly closed the front door.
I would like us to ring-fence one team for the small end next year, and I expect it to make this number worse. I am recommending it anyway.
The ask
Read the appendix. Not now — this week. And when you do, ask of each number: what decision made this footprint?
If we can get in the habit of reading our own numbers as a record of our behaviour, not a verdict on our worth, we will make better decisions with them. That is the entire goal of this meeting.