The 7 KPIs that actually matter
Most KPI dashboards have 30+ widgets. Most of them go unread. The KPIs that actually predict whether your business is going to be alive in 12 months fit on one screen.
1. Revenue (period over period)
Not just total revenue. Revenue this month vs last month vs same month last year. Trend matters more than the number.
2. Gross margin %
Margin reveals problems revenue hides. A growing business with shrinking margin is a slow-motion disaster. Track gross margin overall and by product/channel.
3. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) — blended
Marketing spend ÷ new customers acquired. Blend across paid, email, organic, and referral. The single highest-leverage number for a growing business.
4. Customer lifetime value (LTV)
Average revenue per customer × average customer lifetime, by cohort. Compare to CAC. The LTV:CAC ratio is the simplest health check in business.
5. Cash runway
Months of operating cash at current burn rate. The first metric every founder and owner should check daily.
6. AR aging (for service or B2B businesses)
What % of your AR is over 30, 60, 90 days. Predicts cash flow problems before they hit your bank account.
7. Revenue concentration
% of revenue from your top customer and your top 3 customers. Anything over 25% from one customer is a structural risk.
How to build the dashboard
The DIY path: build it in Looker Studio, Metabase, or Power BI. Plan on 10–40 hours of building, plus ongoing maintenance whenever your data sources change.
The fast path: use a platform with pre-built KPI dashboards. Illuminated Intelligence [blocked] ships with all seven of these KPIs out of the box, populated from QuickBooks, Shopify, HubSpot, and your other tools. First dashboard appears within an hour of connecting your data.
The smart path: use that platform plus an AI advisor [blocked] that watches the KPIs continuously and pings you when something changes meaningfully. ENKII does this inside Illuminated Intelligence.
What to do once you have the dashboard
A dashboard you don't act on is decoration. The discipline that separates the businesses that grow from the ones that don't is a weekly review of the seven KPIs above, with a written action item for each one that's red or yellow. ENKII automates most of this — it doesn't just show you the metrics, it tells you what's changed and what to do about it.
Start with the free tier [blocked] and see all seven KPIs on your real data in under an hour.
Ready to see your business, illuminated? Start a free 7-day trial [blocked] of Illuminated Intelligence — no credit card required, full setup in under an hour. Or meet ENKII [blocked], our AI business advisor that turns your data into next-step recommendations.