The Founder’s Survival Guide to Fancy Acronyms and Buzzwords

Because apparently, we no longer sell things. We optimize CAC, track LTV, expand TAM, and raise a bridge while extending the last round that was not really a round. Breathe.

Here is the simple version, with jokes and no fluff.

Quick wins to keep in your head

• CAC: what it costs to get one paying customer

• LTV: how much money you will make from that customer over time

• Burn rate: how much cash you spend each month

• Runway: months of life left at your current burn

• Churn: how many customers leave

• Payback period: how long it takes to earn back your CAC

If you can explain those six in simple English, you can survive most meetings.

Market size trio: TAM, SAM, SOM

• TAM, Total Addressable Market: everyone on earth who could use your thing if the stars aligned. Dream land.

• SAM, Serviceable Addressable Market: people you can actually reach with your product and channels.

• SOM, Serviceable Obtainable Market: what you can realistically win in the next few years once reality shows up.Joke to remember it: TAM is the universe, SAM is your country, SOM is your neighborhood.

Customer money talk

• CAC, Customer Acquisition Cost: total sales and marketing spend divided by new customers. If you spent 1,000 and got 10 customers, CAC is 100.

• LTV, Lifetime Value: average revenue per customer times how long they stay, adjusted for margins.

• LTV to CAC ratio: a quick sanity check. Many folks aim for about 3 to 1 or better.

• Payback period: months to recover CAC from gross profit. Shorter is better.

• ARPU or ARPPU: average revenue per user or per paying user.

• Churn: customers who leave. Logo churn counts accounts. Revenue churn counts dollars.

• Retention: the opposite of churn. If people stay, the product is doing real work.

• Cohorts: groups of users who started in the same month. Watch how they behave over time to see real retention.

Revenue words that cause arguments

• MRR and ARR: monthly and annual recurring revenue.

• Gross margin: revenue minus cost to deliver. High margin gives you room to grow.

• Contribution margin: gross margin after variable costs like support or payment fees.

• GMV: total transaction value in a marketplace. Not the same as your revenue.

• Take rate: your slice of GMV. If GMV is 100 and you take 10, revenue is 10.

• Rule of 40: growth rate plus profit margin around forty is considered healthy. Loose rule, not a law of nature.

Product fit and growth

• MVP, Minimum Viable Product: the smallest thing that proves value. Ugly is fine if it works.

• Prototype: a quick model to test an idea.

• Proof of concept: a small experiment to show it can work at all.

• Product market fit: users pull the product from your hands, you keep up rather than push.

• North star metric: one number that shows delivered value. Pick something users feel, not just clicks.

• DAU, WAU, MAU: daily, weekly, monthly active users. Useful only if you define active with care.

• Stickiness: DAU divided by MAU. A rough feel for habit.

• K factor: virality. Over 1 means each user brings more than one new user. Rare, do not bank on it.

Vanity metrics

Pretty numbers that do not pay rent. Impressions, views, sign ups that never activate, likes from bots. If the number does not tie to revenue, retention, or clear progress to either, it is probably vanity.

Business model basics

• Business model: how you make money, who pays, and why they keep paying.

• Business Model Canvas: nine boxes on one page to outline customers, value, channels, and money.

• Business plan: longer document with research, risks, and financials. Often useful for banks and grants.

  
  

Use the canvas to think, use a plan when someone formal asks for it.

Fundraising levels in plain English

• Idea or friends and family: people who love you more than they love due diligence.

• Pre seed: very early belief money to find fit.

• Seed: money to prove repeatable growth, not just a lucky month.

• Series A: scale what already works.

• Series B and later: bigger checks for bigger growth and bigger expectations.

• Bridge or extension: extra money between rounds.

• Down round: new valuation is lower than last time. Painful but survivable.

• Secondary: investors buy shares from existing holders. No new cash into the company.

Fundraising instruments

• SAFE: a simple agreement for future equity. Usually includes a valuation cap, sometimes a discount. Converts into shares later.

• Convertible note: a loan that converts to equity later, usually with interest.

• Priced equity round: you sell shares at a set valuation now.Important words here:

• Valuation cap: the highest valuation used for your SAFE at conversion.

• Discount: a percent off the next round price.

• Most favored nation: if later investors get better terms, early ones can match.

• Pro rata rights: the right to invest more later to keep the same ownership.

Term sheet words you will hear

• Liquidation preference: who gets paid first in a sale. One times non participating is common. Participating means they get money back and share in the rest too.

• Anti dilution: protects investors if a later round is cheaper. Weighted average is common.

• Board seat and observer: who gets a vote, who just listens.

• Protective provisions: things you cannot do without investor approval.

  
  

Read this stuff slowly and ask questions. Boring saves lives.

Cap table and options

• Cap table: the spreadsheet of who owns what. Treat it like a sacred text.

• Option pool: shares reserved for future hires. Often expanded just before a round.

• ESOP: employee stock option plan.

• Vesting: shares earned over time, for example four years with a one year cliff.

• 409A: a valuation for pricing options in the United States. Your local rules may vary.

Money health

• Burn rate: how much cash you spend per month.

• Runway: cash on hand divided by burn. Twelve months is a comfy pillow.

• Burn multiple: net burn divided by net new ARR. Lower means you are efficient.

• Sales efficiency or magic number: how much revenue next quarter you get from sales and marketing this quarter. A simple sniff test for go to market spend.

Go to market words that show up on slides

• ICP, Ideal Customer Profile: the kind of customer who gets the most value and will actually buy.

• Buyer persona: the human inside that company who signs or champions the deal.

• Funnel: awareness, interest, decision, purchase, then expansion.

• Conversion rate: percent of people who move to the next step.

• A B testing: try two versions, keep the one that wins.

• OKRs and KPIs: goals and the numbers that prove they happened. Keep them few and boring.

Moat and defensibility

Investors will ask what protects you once people notice you. Real moats look like this:

• Network effects, the product gets better as more people use it

• High switching costs, moving away is painful or slow

• Proprietary data, you have unique information that improves results

• Scale benefits, bigger is cheaper in a way that matters

• Brand and trust, hard to copy but very realMagic words without proof are not a moat.

  
  

Screenshots are not a moat. A good sleep schedule is not a moat, though it helps.

The pitch deck, slide by slide

You do not need a thousand slides. Ten to twelve is plenty.

1. Title and one line what you do

2. Problem, show the pain with a real example

3. Solution, the product in a sentence and one clean image

4. Why now, a shift in tech or behavior that makes this possible

5. Market, the TAM SAM SOM trio with believable math

6. Product or demo, the moment of clarity

7. Traction, growth and retention and any revenue

8. Business model, who pays, how much, how often

9. Go to market, who you target and how you reach them

10. Competition and your advantage, honest and direct

11. Team, why you are the ones

12. Financials and the ask, how much you are raising and where it goes

13. Optional: roadmap and milestones. Keep it crisp, no tiny fonts, no walls of text.

What investors quietly scan for

• Real problem, clear customer, proof they care

• Retention that is not a one week spike

• CAC that gets paid back in a reasonable time

• Margins that make growth worth it

• A plan to use money on things that move revenue or retention

Different kinds of investors

• Angel: an individual who invests their own money. Often helpful and fast.

• Venture capital: a firm that invests money from limited partners. Brings checks and also expectations.

• Family office: a team managing wealth for one family. Often patient.

• Corporate venture: money from a company with strategic goals. Can open doors, can add process.

• Grants and prizes: non-dilutive and wonderful, but with rules and reports.

• Accelerators: small check, short program, lots of peer pressure and mentors. Sometimes gold, sometimes stickers.

A mini glossary you will hear in the wild

• Dilution: your percent ownership goes down when new shares are issued.

• Cliff: no options vest until a set date, then they start to vest monthly.

• Due diligence: a legal way to say please open your folders.

• Data room: the shared folder where you put those folders.

• Bridge: a short round to reach the next milestone.

• Flat round: same valuation as last time.

• Down round: lower valuation. Heavy sigh.

• Up round: higher valuation. Tiny dance.

• MoM growth: month over month growth.

• NPS: a loyalty survey that can be helpful, but do not worship it.

• Churn cohort: the month a user joined, watched over time.

• Run rate: annualized number based on a recent month. Useful if your revenue is steady.

How to use this guide without losing your mind

When you hear a fancy word, translate it into a simple sentence with numbers if possible.

Ask how it ties to real customers and real money. If the answer is a long story with no numbers, it is probably decoration.

One page checklist for your next deck

• Show the problem and who has it

• Prove that people come back or pay, and ideally both

• Share simple unit economics, CAC, payback, margin

• Show your market and why now

• Explain go to market in one paragraph

• Ask for a clear amount and say what it buys in milestones and months

Friendly note: none of this is financial advice. It is a translation guide. If reading it made you roll your eyes and also breathe easier, that is the exact mood I was going for. You're welcome *sprinkle sprinkle* :)