When great revenue hides terrible unit economics (a startup story)
Original: A crash course in unit economics — don't learn this the painful way

Summary
Ha Nguyen reflects on how early-stage hype masked unsustainable unit economics in a fashion startup.
Who This Is For
Founders
Product Managers
Growth Marketers
Key Takeaways
- Learn to distinguish between lifetime revenue and actual lifetime value (which should be net profit, not total sales)
- Calculate unit economics by measuring profitability per order or customer, factoring in all variable costs including labor
- Ensure your LTV:CAC ratio is healthy before scaling - some marketing channels may be profitable while others aren't
- High revenue growth and customer satisfaction can mask fundamentally broken business models
- Always drill into contribution margins and customer churn when evaluating unit economics
Tools & Technologies
Keaton Row platform Net Promoter Score (NPS) measurement Affiliate revenue tracking systems Customer churn analysis tools
Topics Covered
startups cost-structure fashion unit-economics
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