Glossary
Quick reference for the terms and acronyms used across the library. Where relevant, each entry links to the chapter that uses it.
Strategy
Section titled “Strategy”- ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) — the specific customer segment that gets the most value from your product, is cheapest to acquire, and retains best. The most upstream GTM decision. See Strategy: ICP.
- Segment — a slice of the broader market grouped by shared traits. Markets contain many segments; the ICP is the one segment you commit to.
- Persona — the individual human inside the ICP you actually talk to (their role, goals, daily frustrations). One ICP can have several personas.
- JTBD (Jobs To Be Done) — the underlying job a customer hires your product to do, framed as an outcome (e.g. “help me ship faster”) rather than a feature. See Marketing: Jobs to be Done.
- TAM (Total Addressable Market) — the total revenue opportunity if every possible customer bought.
- SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market) — the subset of TAM you can realistically reach given your product, geography, and channels.
- SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market) — the subset of SAM you can realistically win in a defined time horizon. See Marketing: TAM/SAM/SOM.
- Positioning — the distinct, valuable place you occupy in a customer’s mind relative to the alternatives they’re actually weighing. See Strategy: Positioning.
- Value proposition — the customer-facing distillation of your position: the headline outcome you deliver, often framed as “X without Y.”
- Value metric — the unit you charge by, ideally one that rises as the customer gets more value (seats, usage, outcomes). See Strategy: Pricing & Packaging.
- STP (Segmentation / Targeting / Positioning) — the three-step Marketing framework for choosing who to serve and how to stand apart. See Marketing: Strategy (STP).
Marketing
Section titled “Marketing”- MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) — a lead whose behavior or attributes cross a Marketing-defined threshold worth handing to Sales.
- SAL (Sales Accepted Lead) — an MQL that Sales has reviewed and agreed is worth pursuing.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) — the fully-loaded cost to acquire one paying customer (sales + marketing spend ÷ new customers).
- CAC payback — months of gross profit needed to recover the CAC for a customer.
- LTV (Lifetime Value) — the total gross profit a customer generates before they churn.
- CPM (Cost Per Mille) — cost per 1,000 ad impressions.
- CPC (Cost Per Click) — cost per ad click.
- CTR (Click-Through Rate) — clicks ÷ impressions on an ad or link.
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) — revenue generated ÷ ad spend, usually expressed as a multiple.
- ROI (Return on Investment) — profit generated ÷ amount invested. See Marketing: ROI & ROAS.
- Attribution — the model that assigns credit for a conversion across the channels and touchpoints that contributed to it. See Marketing: Attribution.
- Awareness — the top-of-funnel stage where a prospect first knows you exist.
- Demand generation — marketing programs designed to create new interest in your category or product (as opposed to capturing existing search demand).
- Brand equity — the cumulative trust, recognition, and preference your brand carries in the market. See Marketing: Brand Perception.
- SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) — a prospect Sales has determined is a real opportunity and worth working as a deal.
- BANT (Budget / Authority / Need / Timeline) — a classic qualification framework. See Sales: BANT.
- MEDDIC — an enterprise qualification framework: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion.
- Pipeline coverage — open pipeline value ÷ the period’s quota. 3-4× is a common starting prior. See Sales: Pipeline Coverage.
- Win rate — deals won ÷ deals worked (or ÷ deals closed). See Sales: Win Rate.
- Deal velocity — average time from opportunity created to closed-won. See Sales: Deal Velocity.
- ACV (Annual Contract Value) — annualized revenue from a single customer contract.
- TCV (Total Contract Value) — full revenue across the contract term (multi-year deals).
- Quota — the revenue or new-business target assigned to a salesperson for a period. See Sales: Quota Attainment.
- Forecast — the predicted closed revenue for the next period, based on pipeline coverage and historical win rates. See Sales: Forecast Accuracy.
- SLA (Service Level Agreement) — in the Marketing/Sales context, the contract between the two teams on lead-handoff response time and acceptance criteria.
Customer Success
Section titled “Customer Success”- NRR (Net Revenue Retention) — revenue retained from existing customers including expansion, net of churn and contraction. >100% means revenue compounds even with zero new logos.
- GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) — revenue retained from existing customers excluding expansion. Caps at 100%; the pure churn measure.
- ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) — annualized value of all active subscriptions.
- MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) — monthly equivalent of ARR.
- Logo churn — the percentage of customers (logos) lost in a period.
- Revenue churn — the percentage of revenue lost in a period (a single big account leaving can spike this without moving logo churn much).
- Activation — the first observable event that proves a user got the core value. See Library: Activation and PQL thresholds.
- Expansion — additional revenue from existing customers via more seats, higher tier, add-ons, or new SKUs. See Customer Success: Expansion.
- Upsell — moving a customer to a higher tier of the same product.
- Cross-sell — selling an adjacent product or module to an existing customer.
- Renewal — the customer’s decision to continue their subscription at the end of the contract term. See Customer Success: Renewals.
Funnel & PLG
Section titled “Funnel & PLG”- PQL (Product Qualified Lead) — a user whose in-product usage signals readiness to pay (e.g. hit a free-tier cap, used a premium feature, visited the pricing page after activation).
- Funnel — the staged view of how prospects become customers: Awareness → Conversion → Retention (and Expansion). See Marketing: Funnel and the cross-team Lead-to-Revenue funnel.
- Conversion rate — the percentage of users who move from one funnel stage to the next.
- TTV (Time to Value) — the elapsed time from sign-up to activation. Shorter TTV correlates strongly with higher retention.
- Freemium — a pricing model with a permanent free tier that’s capped on capacity but not on core value. Typical free→paid conversion: 2-5%.
- Free trial — time-boxed full access to a paid plan. Typical conversion: 15-25% with a credit card up front, lower without.
- Cohort — a group of users segmented by a shared starting point (usually signup month) so retention and behavior can be tracked over time.
- Aha moment — the user’s first experience of the product’s core value; a synonym for the activation event.
- Activation rate — activated users ÷ total signups. Healthy self-serve products typically land in the 20-40% range.