Business Health Diagnostic
Run a holistic SaaS health scorecard across growth, retention, unit economics, and burn before a board deck or fundraising conversation.
Overview
Business Health Diagnostic is an agent skill most often used in Grow (also Validate for fundraising prep, Operate for ongoing reviews) that diagnoses SaaS health across growth, retention, unit economics, and capital effi
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/deanpeters/product-manager-skills --skill business-health-diagnosticWhat is this skill?
- Holistic diagnostic across growth, retention, unit economics, and capital efficiency—not a single KPI check
- Surfaces red flags vs leading indicators with urgency-based action priorities
- Built for board meetings, quarterly business reviews, and fundraising prep (about 20–30 minutes)
- Interactive finance-metrics workflow aligned to SaaS operator scenarios
- 20–30 min estimated session
- holistic multi-dimension diagnostic (growth, retention, efficiency, capital)
Adoption & trust: 1.3k installs on skills.sh; 5k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You have strong or noisy headline metrics but no clear picture of whether growth, retention, burn, and economics actually align before a board or raise.
Who is it for?
Bootstrapped or venture-backed SaaS founders preparing board materials, quarterly reviews, or a fundraising narrative who need cross-metric diagnosis in one pass.
Skip if: Pre-revenue ideas with no metrics, non-SaaS business models, or teams that only need a single metric deep-dive (e.g. churn-only) without holistic framing.
When should I use this skill?
Preparing a business review, prioritizing urgent fixes, or assessing SaaS health for board meetings, quarterly reviews, or fundraising preparation.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You leave with a prioritized health scorecard, urgent fixes ranked by severity, and talking points suitable for quarterly reviews or investor conversations.
- Business health scorecard
- Prioritized urgent actions
- Stakeholder-ready narrative for review meetings
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Canonical shelf is Grow because the skill’s output is metric interpretation and prioritization for scaling decisions, not day-one ideation or shipping code. Analytics is the best fit for connecting revenue, retention, efficiency, and capital metrics into one diagnostic narrative.
Where it fits
Interpret whether headline growth masks retention or efficiency problems before scaling ad spend.
Sanity-check unit economics and capital story ahead of a fundraise or pricing change.
Turn quarterly metrics into an ordered fix list for the next operating sprint.
How it compares
Use instead of ad-hoc spreadsheet commentary or one-off ChatGPT prompts that never connect retention, CAC/LTV, and burn in the same framework.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is business-health-diagnostic for?
Solo builders and small SaaS teams who own metrics narrative for boards, investors, or internal prioritization and want a structured multi-metric diagnostic rather than isolated KPI checks.
When should I use business-health-diagnostic?
In Grow when reviewing analytics and lifecycle health; in Validate when stress-testing readiness before a raise; in Operate when running quarterly business reviews and deciding which operational fixes are urgent.
Is business-health-diagnostic safe to install?
Treat it like any third-party agent skill: review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page and avoid pasting live credentials or raw customer PII into the session.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Business Health Diagnostic
## Purpose Diagnose overall SaaS business health by analyzing growth, retention, unit economics, and capital efficiency metrics together. Use this to identify problems early, prioritize actions by urgency, and deliver a comprehensive health scorecard for board meetings, quarterly reviews, or fundraising preparation. This is not a single-metric check—it's a holistic diagnostic that connects revenue, retention, economics, and efficiency to reveal systemic issues and opportunities. ## Key Concepts ### The Business Health Framework A SaaS business is healthy when four dimensions work together: 1. **Growth & Retention** — Are you growing and keeping customers? - Revenue growth rate - NRR (Net Revenue Retention) - Churn rate - Quick Ratio 2. **Unit Economics** — Is the business model profitable at the customer level? - CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) - LTV (Lifetime Value) - LTV:CAC ratio - Payback period - Gross margin 3. **Capital Efficiency** — Are you using cash efficiently? - Burn rate - Runway - Rule of 40 - Magic Number 4. **Strategic Position** — Are you positioned for sustainable success? - Market positioning (below, at, above market pricing) - Competitive moat (network effects, data, brand) - Revenue concentration risk - Operating leverage ### Stage-Specific Benchmarks **Early Stage (Pre-$10M ARR):** - Focus: Product-market fit, unit economics - Growth: >50% YoY - LTV:CAC: >3:1 - Gross Margin: >70% - Runway: >12 months - Acceptable: Negative margins, high burn (if unit economics work) **Growth Stage ($10M-$50M ARR):** - Focus: Scaling efficiently - Growth: >40% YoY - NRR: >100% - Rule of 40: >40 - Magic Number: >0.75 - Acceptable: Moderate burn if growth is strong **Scale Stage ($50M+ ARR):** - Focus: Profitability, efficiency - Growth: >25% YoY - NRR: >110% - Rule of 40: >40 - Profit Margin: >10% - Required: Positive or near-positive cash flow ### Red Flag Categories **Critical (Fix immediately):** - Runway <6 months - LTV:CAC <1.5:1 - Churn accelerating cohort-over-cohort - NRR <90% - Magic Number <0.3 **High Priority (Fix within quarter):** - Rule of 40 <25 - Payback >24 months - Quick Ratio <2 - Gross margin <60% - Revenue concentration >50% in top 10 customers **Medium Priority (Address within 6 months):** - NRR 90-100% (flat, not growing) - Magic Number 0.3-0.5 - Operating leverage negative - Churn rate stable but high (>5% monthly) ### Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT) - **Not a single metric:** "Revenue is growing 50%, we're great!" (ignoring burn, churn, unit economics) - **Not stage-agnostic:** Early-stage burn is acceptable; scale-stage burn is a problem - **Not static:** Health is directional—are metrics improving or degrading? - **Not just numbers:** Context matters (competitive pressure, market changes, team capacity) ### When to Use This Framework **Use this when:** - Preparing for board m