What it says
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Final board pack presented by Nell Ashcombe on 16 Jul 2024. It reports contracted ARR of £180,375, seven customers and headcount of 14 at 30 Jun 2024, and says plainly what it leaves out. It is a historic position, not a current one.
What it is: an internal board pack for the quarter ending 30 Jun 2024, presented by Nell Ashcombe, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder. It is marked Final and is for the board.
Claims: "Contracted annual recurring revenue stands at £180,375", taken from executed order forms and covering subscription only, not implementation fees. It also reports seven customers and a team of fourteen.
Unusual: the pack withholds a quarter-on-quarter comparison "until the comparison is built on the same definitions throughout". It asks the board to endorse that approach.
Not settled: it does not show cash, margin, pipeline or individual customer health. It is more than two years old at the as-of date, so its figures are a past position and should not be read as current.
As found in this document
The document
Body
BB-Demo - Board Pack - quarter to 30 Jun 2024
Status: Final Presented by: Nell Ashcombe, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Pack date: 16 Jul 2024 Period covered: the quarter ending 30 Jun 2024
Purpose of this pack
This pack gives the board a plain view of where BB-Demo stands at the end of the quarter. It is short on purpose. Where the evidence is thin, it says so. Where we do not yet have a number we trust, we have left it out rather than guess.
Headline numbers
| Measure | Position at 30 Jun 2024 |
|---|---|
| Annual recurring revenue (contracted) | £180,375 |
| Customers | 7 |
| Headcount | 14 |
These three figures are the whole of the quantitative story this quarter. Everything below is commentary on them.
Annual recurring revenue
- Contracted annual recurring revenue stands at £180,375.
- This is the contracted figure, taken from executed order forms, not a CRM claim and not a forecast.
- It is a subscription number only. One-off implementation fees are not part of it.
- With a base this small, a single renewal or a single new customer moves the total visibly. The board should read the figure as a position, not a trend line.
Read the whole document (4,127 characters)
Customers
- We have seven customers at the quarter end.
- At this size every account is known personally to the founders and the team. That is a strength while it lasts, and it is also a concentration risk.
- The question we keep asking of each account is the same one: what would the brain say about how much value this customer gets? We want that answered from usage and finance data, not from goodwill.
Team
- Headcount is fourteen.
- The team is small enough that each hire changes what the company can do. It is also small enough that one departure is felt across several customers.
- Customer success and implementation capacity remain the practical limit on how quickly we can onboard new customers well.
What the numbers do not show
In the spirit of saying what happened and how we know:
- This pack does not include a quarter-on-quarter comparison. We have chosen not to present one until the comparison is built on the same definitions throughout.
- It does not show cash, margin or pipeline. Those belong in the finance section of the next pack once the reporting is consistent.
- It does not describe individual customer health. That is handled account by account by the customer success team and the account owners.
Commentary from the Chief Executive
The business is small, early and real. Seven customers paying a contracted £180,375 a year is a base we can build on, and also a base that leaves little room for error. The most valuable thing we can do over the next quarter is keep every one of these seven customers well served, so that renewals are uneventful and expansion conversations arise from use rather than from selling.
I would rather the board hear a straight account of a modest position than a polished account of an unclear one.
Priorities for the coming quarter
- Protect the base. Keep every customer's brain fresh, answered and visibly useful. Watch for the early signs of a quiet account.
- Evidence of value. Make sure each customer can see, in their own data, what the brain is worth to them.
- Reporting discipline. Agree the definitions for recurring revenue, customer count and headcount so that the next pack can show movement with confidence.
- Hire carefully. Add capacity where customers feel it first, and no faster than we can onboard people properly.
Matters for the board
- To note the position at 30 Jun 2024: recurring revenue of £180,375, seven customers and a team of fourteen.
- To endorse the reporting approach described above, including the decision to withhold comparisons until definitions are settled.
- To discuss where the board would most like additional detail in the next pack.
Next steps
- Nell Ashcombe to circulate any follow-up questions from the board discussion.
- Updated pack to follow at the end of the next quarter, in the same format, with the gaps listed above addressed as far as the data allows.
Best, Nell
Unusual terms
Current to 9 Oct 26- Quarter-on-quarter comparison withheld until definitions are settled