Growth all day long. This is a very high value and high margin business, really not concerned about profitability at this stage (although it's nice to have).
Frankly I don't care about customer receipts or revenues, and the lag from recurring contract value. The contract value is the critical thing. The other metrics I'd like to see, as indicators of growth, are all usage based -
- total data volume (either as MB/GB/TB, or number of points, or whatever makes sense), and average data per subscription
- total processing capacity consumed, probably CPU hours, and average per subscription
- some measure of active hours within the tool, both total and average per subscription / user
These things indicate that not only are the sales guys selling and the customer's procurement teams buying, but the actual users are using. I often need to distinguish with our internal teams whether we are trying to add capabilities for our users, or to impress the procurement teams who review our offerings and sign the checks. Both are valid! Sometimes you need to put lipstick on the pig to sell it. These type of usage metrics are very useful to understand if you are actually selling a lipstick covered pig, or a very s3xy sheep or something else.
