--- title: "SaaS Investor KPIs | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 16" titleOriginal: "SaaS-klubi - SaaS-sijoittajien KPIt | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 16" episodeNumber: "16" guest: "Sami Miettinen" datePublished: 2020-04-26 duration: "46:24" youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXR5M5ekTY4" originalLanguage: "fi" topics: ["saas_software","ma_exits","investing_markets"] subtitleMethod: "none" provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here even though the publisher's list has sixteen of them: every gap is exactly 180 seconds, which is a grid rather than a record of where the topics changed, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. This is a solo episode by the host, who works in corporate finance advising on the kind of transaction it describes; nothing in it is investment advice, and the multiples and benchmark levels are those of April 2020." fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/21-saas-klubi-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen-neuvottelij" canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep16-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen/ --- # SaaS Investor KPIs | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 16 English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript. ## Summary Sami Miettinen walks the SaaS Club through the metrics professional investors use to evaluate software businesses: annual recurring revenue, churn, customer acquisition cost and lifetime value. The episode unpacks the Rule of 40, revenue and EBITDA multiples, and why the income statement has to be split between new customer acquisition and recurring business. It also covers SaaS funding options from venture debt to private equity, and when a company should start shaping itself for a sale. Finally it examines the sales model and cost load involved in moving from a home market to international expansion. ## Split the income statement first A software company's profit and loss mixes two different businesses: winning customers, which costs money up front, and serving them, which produces margin for years. Until those are separated, no ratio computed from the statement means anything — which is why this is the first move rather than one of the analyses. ## Which churn Logo churn counts customers leaving; revenue churn counts money leaving. A company can look healthy on one and poor on the other, and an investor asking for churn has a specific definition in mind. Answering with the wrong one reads as evasion even when it is not. ## Five million The threshold named for when the exit conversation changes. Concrete numbers of this kind are what a session like this is for, and they are also what dates it — the figure belongs to the market of April 2020. ## Watch The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [SaaS-klubi - SaaS-sijoittajien KPIt | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXR5M5ekTY4). A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/21-saas-klubi-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen-neuvottelij). ## In depth The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: [English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep16-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep16-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen/). ## Explore the ideas in depth - [Nordic SaaS Valuation & M&A: How AI Reprices Software Companies](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/nordic-saas-valuation-and-ma/): How software companies in the Nordics are valued and sold as AI moves inference into the cost of goods sold — where multiples stand in mid-2026, the metrics that get repriced, why vertical SaaS defends its premium, AI due diligence, and the shift from seats to outcomes. Grounded in Translink's SaaS valuation work and Neuvottelija conversations. - [Enterprise AI Agents: Economics, Governance and the Shift From Tools to Workers](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/enterprise-ai-agents-economics-and-governance/): A guide to enterprise AI agents — the real cost model behind agent work, why owning your own stack is becoming a strategic question, a working governance framework with approval gates and audit trails, the agent risk matrix, the EU AI Act timeline as it stands, and who captures the productivity gains. Grounded in a real multi-agent lab, two 2026 keynotes, and Neuvottelija conversations. - [How to Sell a Company in Finland: An M&A Banker's Guide to a Clean Exit](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/how-to-sell-a-company-in-finland/): A practical guide to selling a company in Finland and the Nordics — the process phase by phase, share deal vs asset deal, valuation, due diligence, buyer types, deal structures, taxes on the sale, minority squeeze-outs and the ownership context that shapes every exit. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and Translink M&A practice. --- Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — SaaS Investor KPIs | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 16, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep16-saas-sijoittajien-kpit-sami-miettinen/, 2020-04-26. For quotes include episode 16 and timestamp.