

Alok Goel is Co-founder and CEO/CFO of Drivetrain, the AI-native business planning platform for modern finance teams. He holds an MBA in finance and brings deep financial expertise from over five years as a Partner at Elevation Capital, where he led venture investments in high-growth companies, rigorously evaluating business models, financial projections, and unit economics at scale. Alok also served as CEO of FreeCharge, where he executed India's largest M&A in the Indian internet space, and held leadership roles at RedBus as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer. Earlier in his career, he spent over five years at Google, leading product management for Google Display Network and heading search and mobile products.
Articles by Alok Goel


Drivetrain launches native connectors to Anthropic and OpenAI

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How to calculate ramp-up time for better sales capacity planning

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SaaS sales capacity planning: why it matters and how to do it

Why you need a Google Maps for your business

Will business intelligence (BI) really be enough to support your SaaS FP&A?
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Q Factor: A must-track SaaS metric for driving cost-effective and efficient growth

The Q Factor – A sales quota management tool to navigate down markets

A new top-down approach to financial modeling - SaaS metrics-based planning

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Base Rates: The key to sustainably and predictably growing your business

Drivetrain: A new approach to predictable SaaS growth
Metrics from Alok Goel
Customer Retention Cost (CRC)
Customer retention costs (CRC) measures the money a SaaS business spends to keep its existing customers. It includes all expenses related to ensuring customer success and satisfaction.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The net promoter score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that directly impacts a SaaS company's financial health and valuation. Also known as the net promoter system or net promoter index, NPS is a single-question survey tool introduced by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company, in 2003. The metric measures customer satisfaction by asking users how likely they are to recommend a SaaS product to others on a scale of 0-10.
ARPU vs. ARPA in SaaS
ARPU (average revenue per user) calculates the average revenue generated per individual user over a specific period, while ARPA (average revenue per account) measures the average revenue generated per customer account. These metrics provide insights into monetization effectiveness, pricing strategy success, and overall business health, helping companies optimize their revenue growth strategies and make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and customer success investments.
Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer lifetime value (LTV or CLTV), also known as client lifetime value (CLV) or lifetime customer value (LCV), measures the total revenue a business can expect to generate from a single customer account. For SaaS companies, LTV is crucial as it directly influences key business decisions around customer acquisition, product development, and growth—ultimately determining the sustainability and scalability of the business model.
EBITDA
EBITDA is a profitability metric used to gain insights into a company's operational and financial performance. By leaving out non-operational expenses – interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization – the earnings information in EBITDA provides a clear picture of a company's ability to generate cash flow from its core business activities. While widely used in SaaS, EBITDA is considered a non-standard measure of profitability as it is not recognized under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States.
Bookings vs. billings vs. revenue
Bookings, billings, and revenue are key financial metrics in SaaS, representing different stages of a sale. Bookings (or total contract value) show committed sales, billings are invoiced amounts, and revenue is the earned portion. These metrics are vital for assessing financial health and forecasting.
Revenue in SaaS
In a subscription-based business like SaaS, revenue (also known as recognized revenue or earned revenue) represents the income earned or recognized for services or products delivered to customers per the contract terms (month-on-month or any other agreed-upon time period).
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
MRR is the sum of the predictable or confirmed revenues your company earns from active subscriptions every month.
Subscription Revenue
Subscription revenue is the cash a company earns when a customer subscribes to its product or service.
Gross Margin
Gross margin is the difference between the revenue generated from a software product and the cost of delivering that product (also called cost of goods sold or COGS) expressed as a percentage of the total revenue.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
ARR is the recurring revenue from your SaaS business’ subscriptions, normalized over a period of one year.
CAC Payback Period
CAC Payback Period is the time it takes a company to recoup the money it spent to acquire a customer.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
Gross Revenue Retention is the percentage of revenue a company retains from its customers over a defined period (usually one year).
LTV:CAC Ratio
The LTV:CAC ratio compares the average revenue you generate from your customers with the cost to acquire them.