Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Track revenue growth from existing customers through expansion and contraction to prove your product delivers increasing value over time.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

definition

Introduction

Why it matters

How to apply it

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Growth orchestration

The cockpit that sits above your four growth engines. Individual teams can excel at their own metrics, but without orchestration they're musicians playing different songs. This is where everything comes together and where improvements in one engine amplify gains in another.

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Growth team tools

Growth team tools

The wrong tools create friction. The right ones multiply your output without adding complexity. These are the tools I recommend for growth teams that move fast.

Compound growth

Compound growth

Small improvements multiply. A 10% gain across twelve metrics doesn't add up to 120% - it compounds to 3x growth. This is the mathematical engine behind systematic growth.

Growth strategy

Growth strategy

Four decisions that shape everything else. When growth feels harder than it should, the problem is usually here. Get these right and execution becomes much easier.

Growth rhythms

Growth rhythms

Without rhythm, effort becomes scattered and progress invisible. A consistent operating cadence keeps your team aligned and your growth system continuously improving.

Related books

Managing The Professional Service Firm

David H. Maister

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Managing The Professional Service Firm

A classic on leading expert teams. Balance sales, delivery and culture with numbers that keep the firm strong.

Related chapters

2

Quarterly planning

Annual goals mean nothing without quarterly targets that break them down. Learn how to work backwards from revenue through conversion steps and set the assumptions your team will execute against. By the end of this chapter, you'll have a model that turns ambition into arithmetic and gives every team a number they own.

5

How to set up compound growth

Install tracking infrastructure that shows which metrics drive revenue. Build your scorecard and launch your first cycle with the right foundation.

Wiki

Positioning statement

Define how you're different from alternatives in a way that matters to customers to guide all messaging and ensure consistent market perception.

Sample size

Calculate how many users you need in experiments to detect meaningful differences and avoid declaring winners prematurely based on insufficient data.

Competitive advantage

Identify what you do better or differently that competitors can't easily copy to defend margins and win customers consistently over time.

Marketing stack

Organise the tools that capture leads, nurture prospects, and measure performance to automate repetitive work and connect customer data across systems.

API

Enable tools to exchange data programmatically so you can build custom integrations and automate processes that vendor-built integrations don't support.

Conversion tracking

Measure which marketing activities drive desired outcomes to allocate budget toward channels that actually generate revenue instead of vanity metrics.

Referral marketing

Turn satisfied customers into active promoters who systematically bring qualified prospects into your pipeline at near-zero acquisition cost.

Growth drivers

Identify the fundamental factors that directly cause business expansion, concentrating resources on activities that generate measurable results.

Unit economics

Analyse profit per customer to determine if your business model works at scale before investing heavily in growth and customer acquisition.

Compound growth rate

Calculate your true growth trajectory by measuring the rate at which your business grows when gains build on previous gains over multiple periods.

Integration

Connect tools so data flows automatically between systems to eliminate manual entry, keep records current, and enable sophisticated workflows across platforms.

North Star Metric

Choose one metric that best predicts long-term success to align your entire team on what matters and avoid conflicting priorities that dilute focus.

Growth plateau

Diagnose and break through stagnation by identifying which business mechanisms have reached capacity and require new approaches.

OMTM (One Metric That Matters)

Focus your entire organisation on the single metric that best predicts success at your current growth stage, avoiding distraction and misalignment.

Founder-led growth

Build distribution through your personal brand and network where your expertise and story attract customers who trust you before your company.

A/B testing

Compare two versions of a page, email, or feature to determine which performs better using statistical methods that isolate the impact of specific changes.

First-touch attribution

Credit the channel that introduced prospects to your brand to measure awareness efforts and understand which top-of-funnel activities start customer journeys.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Track revenue growth from existing customers through expansion and contraction to prove your product delivers increasing value over time.

Stakeholder Management

Navigate competing priorities and secure buy-in by systematically understanding, influencing, and aligning internal decision-makers toward shared goals.

Attribution model

Assign credit to marketing touchpoints that influence conversions to understand which channels work together and deserve budget in multi-touch journeys.