There are all sorts of dark arts that go into finding the silver bullets of success. That one feature, metric, team member, or breakthrough that will launch your company into the stratosphere. The reality though? You know. It’s far more nuanced. If we’re being honest with ourselves it’s more likely to be unexplainable.

At the team level, there will often be a north star metric or two that will define (directional) success:

• New Bookings
• Retained Customers
• Upsells
• Qualified Leads
• Shipped Features

All the standard operating metrics that directionally demonstrate growth. As we march further into the new year it might be a good exercise to zoom out and attempt to link cross functional team metrics that more scientifically define the silver bullets of success.

Enter the Drake Equation.

I first learned about Dr. Frank Drake’s research in a brilliant Harrison Metal class a few years ago with a great explainer video here. The Drake Equation, in simple terms, is a model to determine the likelihood that there is life on other planets. It could just as easily be called the “how likely is it that we are alone?” equation. Pretty heavy stuff!

It’s also a great way to understand the various drivers of your business.

In order to translate from Astrophysics to business, naturally I cheated a bit between the above video and this 2016 TechCrunch article to grab a couple examples:

• Growth = Product Inventory x Traffic x Conversion x Average Basket Size x Repeat Purchases
• Sales Velocity = Work In Progress x Win Rate x Avg. Deal Size ÷ Time Taken To Close

More generally, for a SaaS business, my example is something like this:

• $$ Growth = Potential Customers x Sales Universe Coverage x Conversion Rate x Average Deal Size x Retained Customers x Upsell Rate

You try it! There’s not even really a right answer! It’s the thought process and discipline of understanding more of your business that is the real unlock here.

New year, new beginnings, better understanding. But really, are we alone..?