A-Z index
All terms
118 terms in QuibLab so far.
A
- A/B TestA controlled experiment that randomly splits users between two versions of a feature so you can measure which one moves the metric you care about, instead of guessing.
- AARRRAcquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue (Pirate Funnel)AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue), aka the Pirate Funnel: Dave McClure's five-stage model that pins one measurable metric to each stage of growth.
- AcquihireAn acquisition whose primary purpose is hiring a startup's team, usually structured as a small upfront price for the company plus large retention grants and signing bonuses for the individual engineers.
- ActivationThe first moment a new user crosses from "signed up" to "got real value," usually pinned to a specific in-product action taken inside a fixed time window.
- Activation EventA specific in-product action you have measured to be the strongest predictor of long-term retention, so the entire onboarding flow gets reorganized to push every new user toward it.
- Aha MomentThe instant a user feels the product's value click for the first time, after which they tend to stick, usually paired with a measurable activation event as a proxy.
- Anti-dilutionA clause that gives earlier investors more shares (or a better conversion price) when a later round prices lower, so their stake doesn't get punished by the cheaper round.
- API-FirstBuilding the product so the API (application programming interface) is the actual product and any dashboard or UI is just a thin layer on top.
- ARRAnnual Recurring RevenueThe yearly value of all active subscriptions in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), counted as if every customer keeps paying at today's rate for the next twelve months.
B
- Bridge RoundA small, fast financing (usually SAFEs or convertible notes from existing investors) raised between two priced rounds to extend runway until the company is ready to price a proper next round.
- Burn MultipleHow much cash you burn for every dollar of new ARR you add, where under 1 is efficient and over 2 means growth is costing way too much.
- Burn RateHow fast you are losing cash each month, usually quoted as gross burn (every dollar out) or net burn (out minus revenue in).
C
- CACCustomer Acquisition CostEverything you spend to land one new paying customer in CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), fully loaded across ad budget, sales team comp, and the tools they run on.
- Cap TableCapitalization TableThe ledger that tracks who owns what in your company (every founder, employee, investor, SAFE holder, and option grant), usually expressed as percentages and share counts on a fully-diluted basis.
- ChurnThe share of customers or revenue that walks out the door in a given period, tracked as logo churn (count of customers gone) or revenue churn (dollars gone).
- Cohort AnalysisA way of grouping customers by something they share (usually signup month) and watching how that group behaves over time, so you can tell real product improvement apart from a shifting mix of users.
- Common StockThe baseline class of company shares, held by founders and employees, with no liquidation preference and the last claim on proceeds after every preferred shareholder has been paid.
- Concierge MVPA tiny version of the product where the founders personally do the work by hand for a few customers, learning the workflow before writing any code to automate it.
- Conversion RateThe share of people who completed a specific action (clicking, signing up, paying) out of everyone who had the chance to do it.
- Convertible NoteA short-term loan that converts to equity at the next priced round, with an interest rate, a maturity date, a valuation cap, and a discount; the original startup seed instrument, mostly replaced by SAFEs after 2013.
- Cross-Side Network EffectWhen adding more users on one side of a platform (like drivers) makes the product more valuable for the other side (like riders), and vice versa.
- Customer DiscoveryThe practice of interviewing potential customers before you build anything, to confirm the problem is real and painful enough that someone would actually pay to fix it.
D
- Default AliveWhether your current growth rate gets you to profitability before the bank account hits zero, a sharper question than runway because it folds in whether you are actually catching up.
- DilutionWhat happens to your ownership percentage when the company issues new shares: your slice of the pie shrinks, even as the pie itself gets bigger.
- DiscountA percentage off the next round's per-share price that a SAFE or convertible note holder receives when their investment converts to equity, typically 10% to 25%.
- DisruptionWhen a newcomer wins by attacking the cheap, ignored end of a market with a simpler good-enough product, then improves until it eats the incumbents from below.
- DogfoodingUsing your own product in real, daily work so the team feels every bug, missing feature, and bad default before customers do, also called eating your own dog food.
- Double-Trigger AccelerationAn equity provision that fully vests unvested shares only when two events both occur within a defined window: the company is acquired, and the employee is terminated without cause or resigns for good reason within a year of closing.
- Down RoundA new round priced below the last one, which marks the company down and usually triggers anti-dilution adjustments for earlier preferred holders.
- Due DiligenceThe deep background check an investor or acquirer runs before a deal closes, going through your finances, contracts, cap table, code, and customer numbers to confirm the company is really what the pitch said it was.
E
F
- Feature FlagA code-level switch that turns a feature on or off for specific users without a redeploy, so shipping a release becomes a config change instead of a deploy event.
- FlywheelA business loop where each turn feeds the next, so growth, quality, or cost gets a little better every cycle and eventually becomes unstoppable.
- FMVFair Market ValueThe per-share price the IRS treats as the true current value of a company's common stock (Fair Market Value), used to set option strike prices and calculate how much tax you owe when you exercise.
- Founder SharesThe common stock issued to founders at incorporation, priced at a fraction of a cent and almost always on a reverse vesting schedule so a founder who walks early gives most of it back.
- FreemiumGiving the core product away free forever and earning money from the small slice of users who pay to unlock limits, features, or extra seats.
- FunnelA staged map of the user journey, wide at the top (everyone who could hear about you) and narrow at the bottom (the few who actually act), used to spot where users drop off.
G
- Garden LeaveA paid waiting period after you resign where the company keeps paying your salary but blocks you from working anywhere, designed to keep you away from clients and competitors.
- GDRGross Dollar RetentionHow much of last year's revenue from the same customers is still on the books this year in GDR (Gross Dollar Retention), counting losses but ignoring upsell, so it can never go above 100%.
- Gross BurnEvery dollar of cash going out the door each month (payroll, software, rent, all of it) before any revenue is netted against it, so you see the raw size of the engine.
- Gross MarginThe share of each revenue dollar left after you pay the direct costs of delivering it (hosting, payment processing, customer support), reported as a percentage.
H
I
- ICPIdeal Customer ProfileICP (Ideal Customer Profile): the tight slice of buyers (industry, size, role, pain, budget) where your product wins fast, loses rarely, and pays the most.
- InboundThe motion where prospects find you on their own, pulled in by content, SEO, community, word of mouth, or product reputation, rather than by you reaching out first.
- ISOIncentive Stock OptionA US-only employee stock option (Incentive Stock Option) that can qualify for lower long-term capital gains tax if you hold the shares long enough, in exchange for tighter rules and Alternative Minimum Tax exposure at exercise.
J
K
- K-factorHow many new users each existing user pulls in through invites or shares, calculated as invites sent per user times the conversion rate on those invites.
- Killer FeatureA single feature so valuable that customers will tolerate weaknesses in the rest of the product to get it, and often switch from incumbents who do everything else better.
L
- Land and ExpandThe motion where you sell a small initial contract to one team inside a company, then grow the account over time by adding seats, products, and adjacent departments.
- Lead InvestorThe investor who anchors a round by setting the valuation, writing the biggest check, and usually taking the board seat, with everyone else filling in around their terms.
- LevelingHow a company maps every role onto a numbered ladder (L3, L4, L5, and so on), with each rung tied to a documented scope of impact and a pay band for salary and equity.
- Liquidation PreferenceThe clause that guarantees investors get their money back (sometimes a multiple of it) before founders or employees see a dollar from an acquisition.
- Lock-inWhen customers stay not because you're the best option, but because leaving would cost them more than putting up with you.
- LTVLifetime ValueThe total gross-margin dollars a customer is expected to leave behind across their entire relationship with you in LTV (Lifetime Value), shrinking as churn rises and stretching out as they stick around.
- LTV:CAC RatioHow much gross margin a customer eventually pays back compared to what they cost to acquire, where investors want at least 3:1 to believe the business model actually works.
M
- Magic NumberHow much new annual recurring revenue you get back for every dollar of sales and marketing you spent the quarter before, where above 0.75 is a green light to hire more reps.
- MFNMost Favored NationA clause (Most Favored Nation) that lets an early investor automatically inherit any better economic terms, like a lower cap or bigger discount, that a later investor negotiates in the same round.
- MoatThe thing competitors can't easily copy that keeps your customers from leaving, whether that's scale, brand, network effects, switching costs, or proprietary data.
- MRRMonthly Recurring RevenueThe predictable subscription revenue your customers owe you this month in MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), with one-time fees and usage spikes stripped out so the number actually repeats.
- MVPMinimum Viable ProductThe smallest, ugliest, most embarrassing version of your product that still lets you test whether anyone actually wants it.
N
- NDRNet Dollar RetentionThe year-over-year change in spend from your existing customer base in NDR (Net Dollar Retention), with upsell and expansion adding to it and churn and downgrades pulling it down, but no credit for new logos.
- Net BurnThe cash you actually lose each month after revenue covers part of the spend, and the number that decides your runway when you divide it into the bank balance.
- Network EffectA dynamic where each additional user makes the product more valuable for every other user, so growth compounds and late competitors struggle to catch up.
- Non-competeA contractual clause that bars a departing employee from working for a competitor, soliciting customers, or starting a competing business for a defined period after leaving, with enforceability that varies sharply by state and country.
- North Star MetricThe single metric that best captures the core value your product delivers to customers, picked so that moving it up forces the rest of the business to follow.
- NPSNet Promoter ScoreNPS (Net Promoter Score): a customer-loyalty number from minus 100 to plus 100, calculated by subtracting the share of detractors (0 to 6 on a 0-10 scale) from the share of promoters (9 or 10).
- NRRNet Revenue RetentionThe twelve-month change in revenue from an existing customer cohort in NRR (Net Revenue Retention), counting upsell, downgrade, and churn but no new logos, and used almost interchangeably with NDR (Net Dollar Retention).
- NSONon-Qualified Stock OptionA stock option (Non-Qualified Stock Option) taxed as ordinary income on the spread between strike price and fair market value the moment you exercise, with no special IRS treatment.
O
- OKRObjectives and Key ResultsA goal-setting framework, Objectives and Key Results, pairing one short qualitative objective with three to five measurable outcomes so every team's work ladders up to a top-level company goal.
- OnboardingThe first-use flow that takes a new user from signup to actual value, built to maximize how many make it across that gap before bouncing.
- Open Source StrategyGiving the core code away free and selling everything around it: hosting, support, enterprise add-ons, or a managed cloud version of the same software.
- Option PoolA block of shares (usually 10% to 20% of the company) set aside for future employee grants, almost always carved out of the pre-money so existing shareholders absorb the dilution, not the incoming investor.
- Option Pool (Employee Side)The reserved pool of company shares set aside for employee, advisor, and contractor grants, expressed as a percentage of the fully-diluted cap table and drawn down each time a new hire signs.
- OutboundThe motion where the seller reaches out first to people who never asked, usually through cold email, cold calls, or LinkedIn DMs run by sales development reps.
P
- Payback PeriodHow many months a new customer's gross-margin revenue takes to repay what you spent to acquire them, where efficient SaaS businesses usually clear it in under 18.
- PivotA structured change of strategy, product, customer, or business model that keeps one foot planted in what the team already learned and swings the other foot somewhere new.
- Platform vs ProductThe difference between a tool customers use directly (product) and a layer other businesses build their own products on top of, where you take a cut while they do the work (platform).
- PLGProduct-Led GrowthPLG (Product-Led Growth): the motion where the product itself drives signup, activation, and expansion, with users self-onboarding into a free or trial tier before any sales conversation.
- PMFProduct-Market FitPMF (Product-Market Fit): the moment your product stops needing to be pushed onto people and starts getting pulled out of your hands by a market that genuinely wants it.
- Post-moneyYour company's valuation immediately after the new investor money lands, equal to pre-money plus the amount raised in the round.
- Pre-moneyYour company's valuation immediately before new investor money lands in the round.
- Pre-SeedThe earliest institutional round, usually $250K to $1M from angels, micro-VCs, or accelerators in exchange for 5% to 10% on a SAFE, raised before real product-market fit.
- Preferred StockThe class of company shares issued to venture investors at each priced round, carrying liquidation preference, anti-dilution protection, board rights, and other contractual privileges that common stock does not have.
- PretotypeA pre-MVP test where you fake the product with cardboard, screenshots, or a script just well enough to see if anyone would actually use the real thing.
- Pro RataPro Rata RightsThe contractual right (not the obligation) for an investor to buy enough of a future round to keep their current ownership percentage intact.
Q
R
- ResurrectionThe act of pulling back users who churned (usually defined as inactive for 28+ days) so they re-engage, often tracked as its own cohort alongside new and active users.
- RetentionThe share of users from a given cohort who keep using the product after a set window, usually checked at day 1, day 7, day 30, and beyond.
- Revenue (Recognized vs Billed)The gap between revenue you earned this period under accounting rules and cash you actually invoiced, which can stretch to 12x when a customer prepays a full year up front.
- RoadmapA rolling plan that lists what the product team intends to ship and in what order, communicated as a statement of priorities rather than a delivery commitment.
- RSURestricted Stock UnitA promise from your employer to deliver real company shares (Restricted Stock Units) as each chunk of your vesting schedule hits, with the value taxed as ordinary income the moment it lands.
- Rule of 40A single-number health check that adds your growth rate to your profit margin, where anything above 40% lets a fast-growing money-loser and a slow-growing cash machine pass the same bar.
- RunwayHow many months you have left at the current pace before the bank account hits zero, assuming today's spend and revenue stay flat.
S
- SAFESimple Agreement for Future EquityA short, founder-friendly contract (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) where an investor wires money now in exchange for shares at the next priced round, with no interest, no maturity date, and no debt to pay back.
- SAMServiceable Addressable MarketSAM (Serviceable Addressable Market): the chunk of TAM your product, languages, distribution channels, and pricing can realistically serve right now.
- Seed RoundThe first institutional round, typically $1M to $5M from VCs and angels in exchange for 10% to 20% equity, used to chase product-market fit.
- Series AThe first priced equity round, usually $5M to $20M raised after product-market fit, with full term sheets, board seats, and preferred stock instead of the lightweight paper of seed.
- SeveranceThe package of pay, benefits continuation, and sometimes equity acceleration offered to an employee at termination, almost always conditioned on signing a release that waives the right to sue the company.
- Single-Trigger AccelerationAn equity provision that fully vests unvested shares the moment a single defined event occurs, almost always the sale or acquisition of the company, regardless of whether the employee stays through the transition.
- SLGSales-Led GrowthSLG (Sales-Led Growth): the motion where a human sales team drives the buy through outbound prospecting, demos, multi-stakeholder evaluations, and negotiated contracts.
- SOMServiceable Obtainable MarketSOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market): the slice of SAM you can actually win in the next three to five years given your team, capital, and competition.
- StickySaid of a product users keep coming back to on their own, often measured as the ratio of daily to monthly active users, with anything above thirty percent considered strong.
- Strike PriceThe fixed per-share price an employee pays to exercise a stock option, set at the company's fair market value on the day the option is granted.
- Switching CostEverything a customer has to pay, redo, or risk to swap your product for a competitor's, in money, time, retraining, and migrations.
T
- TAMTotal Addressable MarketTAM (Total Addressable Market): the full annual revenue a product would earn if every possible buyer on Earth used it at the price you charge.
- Term SheetThe short, mostly non-binding document laying out the headline terms of an investment (valuation, check size, board, preferences, vesting), signed before the lawyers start drafting the 100-page closing docs.
- TTVTime to ValueThe clock from signup to the moment a user gets the first real benefit your product promised, where TTV (Time to Value) is measured in seconds, minutes, or full sessions.
- Two-Sided MarketplaceA platform with two groups of users who transact with each other, where your job is to bring both sides on at the same time and take a cut of every match.
V
- Valuation CapValuation CapThe ceiling valuation at which a SAFE or convertible note converts to equity, protecting the early investor's ownership if the next round prices much higher.
- Vertical SaaSSoftware built for one industry's specific workflow and lingo, trading a smaller market for tighter fit, stickier customers, and fewer competitors.
- Vertical vs HorizontalTwo opposite product strategies, where vertical means going deep in one industry with workflow no generic tool can match, and horizontal means serving one workflow across every industry.
- Vesting CliffThe waiting period at the start of equity vesting, usually a year, during which you earn zero equity, after which a chunk vests all at once.
- Virality CoefficientThe formal name for K-factor: the average number of new users each user pulls in by inviting others, where anything above 1 produces self-sustaining exponential growth.
W
- WedgeA deliberately narrow first product chosen because it cracks open a customer or market you could never win head-on, then lets you expand from inside.
- Wedge StrategyThe move where you enter a huge market through one narrow, undeniable use case, win trust and distribution there, then expand outward into adjacent use cases later.
- Wizard of Oz MVPAn MVP where users see what looks like a fully automated product, but a human is quietly doing the work behind the scenes, named for the man behind the curtain.
#
- 409A ValuationAn independent third-party appraisal of a private company's common-stock value, refreshed at least every twelve months or after any material event, used to set legally defensible strike prices for stock options under IRS Section 409A.
- 83(b) ElectionA one-page IRS filing you must send within 30 days of getting restricted stock that lets you pay tax now on its tiny current value instead of later as it vests at much higher prices.