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Business
Unit economics
The question behind every good business: does each unit pay for itself, and if not, when?
7 lessons
~90 min total
First principles
What you'll learn
Compute the unit economics of any business on a napkin
Distinguish a business that scales profitably from one that doesn't
Read a startup pitch and spot the questionable assumptions
Progress
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Lessons
1
What "unit" means
Pick the wrong unit and every number that follows is wrong.
3 objectives
2
CAC and LTV, honestly
Two numbers everyone quotes and nearly everyone quotes wrong.
3 objectives
3
Gross margin matters
Why SaaS companies can spend on sales and hardware can't.
3 objectives
4
Churn: the silent killer
A small monthly number, compounded, ends companies.
3 objectives
5
Marketplaces and network effects
Chicken-and-egg, solved as a unit-economics problem.
3 objectives
6
Ads vs subscription vs transactional
The revenue shape shapes the company.
3 objectives
7
When scale helps, when it doesn't
Growth cannot fix negative unit economics — it's an accelerant.
3 objectives
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