Intro.
#PMF (Product-Market Fit) — The 40% ‘Very Disappointed’ Bar
PMF asks whether a product has truly found its footing in the market. The most commonly cited measure is the “Sean Ellis test” — ask users, “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?” and measure the share who answer “very disappointed.”
| Metric | PMF Passing Bar |
|---|
| Sean Ellis score | 40%+ answer “very disappointed” |
| Week 4 retention | 30%+ |
| Net Promoter Score (NPS) | 50+ |
| Organic growth share | 50%+ of new signups from referrals or search |
주의
PMF isn't a binary yes/no — it's a matter of degree. Clearing two or more of the metrics above suggests you're getting close to PMF.
02
#LTV/CAC — The Health of Your Unit Economics
The ratio between LTV (customer lifetime value) and CAC (customer acquisition cost) is the simplest signal of whether your unit economics are healthy.
- LTV — the total amount a single customer pays you over their entire lifetime
- CAC — what it costs to acquire that one customer (marketing + sales)
- LTV/CAC ≥ 3 — the standard for a healthy SaaS business
- LTV/CAC of 1–2 — risky (you lose money as you grow)
- LTV/CAC < 1 — rethink the business model immediately
You also need to watch your “CAC payback period.” If it takes more than 12 months to recover your CAC, your cash position gets tight fast.
03
#Crossing the Chasm — The 5–15% Early Adopter Trap
Geoffrey Moore's ‘Crossing the Chasm’ splits technology adoption into five stages — Innovators → Early Adopters → Early Majority → Late Majority → Laggards — and argues there's a deep gap (the “chasm”) between Early Adopters and the Early Majority.
| Stage | Share | Traits |
|---|
| Innovators | ~2.5% | Love new technology for its own sake |
| Early Adopters | ~13.5% | Buy into the vision; tolerate an unfinished product |
| Early Majority | ~34% | Demand proven ROI |
| Late Majority | ~34% | Prefer standardized solutions |
| Laggards | ~16% | Adopt last, reluctantly |
TIP
When sizing SAM (serviceable addressable market) in a business plan, only the Early Adopter segment (5–15% of the total market) is accepted as a realistic initial target. “TAM is ₩1T, so SAM is ₩500B” reads as unrealistic.
04
#Why Now — The Three Elements of Timing
One of the questions investors ask most often is “why now?” If the same idea would have been too early five years ago and too late five years from now, there needs to be a decisive reason it has to start today.
- Regulatory change — new laws or policy that opened up the market or removed an existing barrier
- Technology threshold — AI, 5G, blockchain, or similar technology has reached a commercially viable level
- Shift in customer behavior — a permanent behavioral shift, like remote work after COVID
A strong ‘Why Now’ requires at least two of these three to hold at once. One or fewer reads as “possibly too early” or “already too late.”
05
#Founder-Market Fit — 5+ Years of Domain Experience
Founder-Market Fit (FMF) answers the question: why is this founder the right person to build this business in this market? Domain expertise matters far more than pedigree or resume.
| Weak FMF | Strong FMF |
|---|
| Seoul National University graduate, 5 years at Samsung Electronics | 5 years as a product manager in healthcare SaaS — started building only after she couldn't find a childcare app for her own kids |
| MBA followed by 3 years in consulting | 4 years running SCM operations at a logistics startup, owns proprietary data on core SKU categories |
| Broad experience across many fields | 5+ years going deep in a single domain |
5+ years of domain experience combined with firsthand experience of the problem is the strongest possible FMF combination. When investors see that combination, they discount ‘execution risk’ significantly.
06
#Traction — 2 Validated Channels Out of 19
Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares' ‘Traction’ catalogs 19 marketing and sales channels available to startups — search ads, SEO, content marketing, email, sales calls, viral growth, PR, trade shows, partnerships, and more.
The bar for passing is simple: you need at least two channels that are actually validated to work for your business. “We plan to do ads plus SEO” is not validation. “We ran ads for three months and acquired 100 users at a ₩40K CAC” is validation.
주의
Listing too many channels in a business plan is also a problem. Writing that you'll pursue all 19 signals that you've validated none of them. Focus on 2–3.
07
#The Power Law — The Top 10% Generate 70–80% of Returns
The power law of venture investing is the principle that a small number of big wins generate a fund's entire return. If 1–2 out of 100 investments return 100x, that's what saves the fund.
| Exit type | Historical share | Traits |
|---|
| Total loss | ~60–70% | No capital recovered |
| Partial recovery | ~15–20% | Principal back, or a modest gain |
| M&A | ~10–15% | 10–50x return |
| IPO/unicorn | ~1–5% | 100x+ return (the heart of the power law) |
This structure means one thing for founders: aiming to build an ‘ordinary but decent-sized company’ makes it hard to raise VC money. Investors are asking, “can this company scale into the ₩100B+ range?” If you can't answer that question, it's more realistic to pursue other funding sources, such as government grant programs.
08
#Burn Rate and Runway — The 12-Month Red Line
Burn rate (monthly losses) and runway (how many months your current cash will last) are the key metrics that determine when you need to start fundraising.
- Net burn rate — monthly (spend − revenue). Your true ‘burn speed.’
- Runway — cash balance ÷ net burn rate. How many months you have from today.
- Standard rule of thumb — under 12 months of runway means start fundraising now.
- The average fundraising negotiation takes 4–6 months — starting with 6 months left is already too late.
TIP
If a business plan doesn't specify burn rate and runway, it reads as having no cash management plan. You need explicit language like “this round secures 18 months of runway, within which we reach breakeven.”
Summary.
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