Churn Rate

Definition

The percentage of customers who cancel your service each month, also known as the number that keeps founders awake at 3 AM. A high churn rate means your product is a revolving door; a low one means customers haven't figured out how to find the cancel button yet.

Example Usage

"Our churn rate dropped to 2% this month, which our CEO attributed to product improvements and definitely not to the fact that we hid the cancellation link behind seven pages of guilt trips."

Related Terms

Beginner

Series A, B, C

Sequential institutional funding rounds designated by letters, theoretically indicating maturity but practically just measuring how much money you've convinced people to give you. The alphabet of ambition.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

SAFE

Simple Agreement for Future Equity—a Y Combinator innovation that lets startups take money now and figure out the valuation later. 'Simple' is debatable; some lawyers call them 'complex convertible debt without the debt.'

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

go-to-market strategy

Your master plan for how you'll actually convince humans to exchange money for your product, typically involving buzzwords like 'omnichannel' and 'vertical integration.' It's the section of your pitch deck you update most frequently as each approach fails.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

ghost equity

Phantom stock or profit interests that mimic real equity without actually granting ownership, often used to incentivize employees without diluting founders. All the motivation, none of the control.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

Lean Startup

A methodology for building companies by testing hypotheses quickly and cheaply, based on a book that every founder has read and none have followed. It's called lean because by the time you're done pivoting, your bank account is extremely thin.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

equity kicker

Warrants or stock options added as sweetener to a debt deal, giving lenders upside if the company succeeds. Because apparently charging interest isn't enough—they want a piece of the action too.

🚀 Startup / VC

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