Lever04For software companies and investors
Delivery Costs & AI Productivity
Growth that eats gross margin convinces neither buyers nor investors. We measure delivery speed and cost per customer, rebuild the biggest constraint and anchor AI where it saves hours in the process. The benchmark: Rule of 40.
How you recognize this lever
Every new customer brings custom work
Onboarding and operations grow linearly with customer count. Margin drops as you scale.
Full roadmap, stalling delivery
The path from idea to production takes long, and nobody measures where the time goes.
AI tools are there, the hours remain
Licenses are bought, workflows unchanged. The hoped-for hours don't show up.
90 days, one lever, one number
Days 1 to 15
Cost and speed diagnosis
Cost per customer, cycle time from idea to production, effort drivers in operations. At the end, the biggest constraint is on the table, in numbers.
Days 16 to 75
Rebuild at the constraint
Standardization in onboarding and operations, AI in the workflows of engineering and service, guardrails for responsible use.
Days 76 to 90
Measurement and handover
Before and after on margin, cost per customer and cycle time. Routines and owners sit with your team.
What we work with
Documented methods with named sources. The derivation of the key metrics lives on the methods page. View the methods
Rule of 40
Software valuation standard
Growth and margin as one number. The frame in which delivery work has to pay off.
The 10-20-70 principle
Boston Consulting Group
The BCG formula: 10% of the value sits in algorithms, 20% in technology, 70% in rebuilding processes and ways of working.
Constraint scan
Convios, Defensible Scale methodology
Five layers of the growth machine, one limits. The delivery layer is assessed in the context of the whole.
What you can hold us to
Gross margin
After the cost of operations, support and provisioning.
Cost to serve
Cost per customer in onboarding and ongoing operations.
Cycle time
From idea to production, measured in the delivery process.
Rule of 40
Growth rate plus profit margin as one number.
DELIVERY COST CHECK
What does maintenance cost your company?
Two inputs, instant result.
Delivery cost check by Convios. Industry average, not individual analysis.
The other levers
Lever 01
Acquisition & Sales Efficiency
Measure the chain from first contact to close, rebuild the weakest stage, cut CAC payback.
View this leverLever 02
Pricing & Monetization
Survey willingness to pay, rebuild pricing metric and tiers, build expansion into the model.
View this leverLever 03
Retention & Expansion
Couple onboarding to first success, steer cohorts by early signals, lift NRR.
View this leverWhich lever comes first?
The scaling audit ranks the four levers by impact on your most important number. In a first call, we'll check whether the task is a fit.