Hello {{First name|Predictable Revenue community}},

Two clients churned this week.

I'd love to tell you I handled it like a seasoned operator. I did not. At the very least, I had a temporary childlike reaction. 

Whenever someone churns, my brain goes somewhere dark, fast. Two customers leaving turns into everybody's going to leave. Everybody leaving turns into I lose the company. Losing the company turns into I lose the house.

None of that is true. I know it isn't true. It doesn't stop the thoughts from showing up.

It's a feeling of loss more than anything. Somebody used what you built, paid for it, and then decided they were done. Even when you understand the reasons, it stings.

Yesterday afternoon I had a different thought. I can't be this afraid of churn. I want to know it's part of the business, the same way payroll and Mondays are part of the business.

So I looked at why these two actually left.

Neither of them hated the software. Neither of them said it didn't do the job. Both of them had enough customers coming in from other places, and this week, they didn't need the job Predictable.ai does for them.

That's a very different kind of churn than "this doesn't work." It still hurts. But it isn't a verdict on the product.

I hate losing. I really do.

But pragmatically, I can't win everything. It would be unreasonable to expect that. It would also be unreasonable to expect every customer to stay forever. But sometimes I’m an unreasonable human.

And if it's unreasonable to expect every customer to stay forever, then it's unreasonable to get upset every time one leaves.

I keep coming back to that word. Unreasonable. But where I really landed last night was gratitude.

These two gave me their time. They gave me feedback. They gave me money, which at this stage is the clearest feedback there is.

I had a choice about how to look at it. I could have the selfish reaction, the one where something didn't go my way and I sulk about it. Which I definitely did for a little bit. Or I could be grateful for the time, the opportunity, and everything I learned from working with them. I got here eventually.

Predictable may not have moved fast enough for them. That's fair. But what I learned from them, and from every other customer who's given me their money and their time, makes the software better for everybody who uses it next.

Every future cohort of Predictable customers has those early customers to thank. Most of them will never know it.

Progress isn't measured in monthly recurring revenue. At least not at this stage. It's measured in what I learn, how fast I learn it, and how much better the product gets because of it.

This week also felt like a test. One of those moments where everything I wrote in the book is getting checked against reality.

In The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers, I talk a lot about finding an early seed of customers, learning as much as you can from them, and being hands-on. That's exactly where I am right now. I'm on weekly calls with 20 customers and I'm learning a tonne. The product is in this quantum position of being great and crap at the same time. It’s great because it does an amazing job of finding the right folks to reach out to. What sucks are all the rough edges, the onboarding, and the hundreds of small quality of life features that folks need to get the full value from something like this.

It would be great to be growing. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But I think I need to be happy with learning, advancing, and making the product better. Revenue will follow that or it won't, and staring at it every morning won't change which.

So instead of watching revenue growth, I'm going to watch the leading indicators of retention.

For Predictable, I know what that is. It's how fast a new customer books their first meeting from the platform.

If somebody can book a meeting in week one, that would be incredible. That's time to value. That's the moment they stop wondering whether this thing works and start relying on it.

A customer who gets a meeting in week one has a reason to stay when things get busy. A customer who's still waiting in week four is already halfway out the door, whether they know it or not.

That's the number I can actually move. I can't control whether a client has a great month of referrals and decides to pause. I can control how quickly the next one gets their first win.

Two customers churned this week. I'm sad about it. I'm also grateful, and I'm clearer on what to work on than I was on Monday.

If you took MRR off your dashboard for the next month, what number would you watch instead?

Collin

PS - I am, yet again, looking for one more founder to join the Predictable.ai beta next week. If you’re thinking about GTM, I have something interesting to show you.

The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers is the playbook for founders who never planned to do sales but have to figure it out anyway. It pulls together 13+ years of building software startups, building outbound systems for hundreds of B2B startups, and more failed experiments than I'd care to admit, into a practical guide for finding your first 10, 100, and 1,000 customers.

It will help you build a repeatable way to find customers without losing your weekends (or your soul).

Order now and you'll unlock a stack of exclusive bonuses I actually use with my consulting clients: Email me the receipt and I’ll share the resources.

Email me your receipt and I’ll share the resources.