Articles by Christoph Janz
Financial planning for SaaS startupsChristoph provides a "simple" template example he made for Zendesk, and links to a "V2" he made a year later that is more advanced. The template model separates signups into trackable and non-trackable sources, and calculates revenue by converting signups to customers and multiplying customers by average revenue. It accounts for costs like marketing, support, and development. Profit and cash flow are estimated simply at first. Notably, sanity checks are included to flag unrealistic projections like an EBIT margin over 90% or too few customers per support agent, helping catch planning mistakes.
The Three Rules of FreemiumChristoph explains the pros and cons of the freemium model, and then provides three questions to drive whether to use it: 1) Does your paid plan have a gross margin of 80–90%? 2) Does your free plan attract the right audience? 3) Is your product inherently viral?
