So how do you start to uncover what’s really holding your growth back?

Rather than diving straight into tactical fixes or another round of product tweaks, it pays to step back and ask better questions — the kind that cut through surface-level noise and expose structural issues, misplaced effort, or fragile foundations.

These three questions aren’t complicated, but they consistently surface the blind spots that dashboards miss and day-to-day operations overlook. They can reveal where your strategy is misaligned, where resources are leaking, and where your business might still be dependent on you in ways that limit scale.

Let’s break them down — and explore what each one can tell you about the state of your SaaS business...

1. What’s Your Leading Indicator for Sustainable Growth?

It’s natural to fixate on lagging metrics like MRR, ARR, or churn. These are important, but they tell you what’s already happened. They’re the scoreboard — not the game.

The more strategic question is:

What signal tells you that you’re building long-term value — before the revenue shows up?

These leading indicators vary by company, but common examples include:

• Activation rates within the first 7 days
• Number of users reaching a “core value moment”
• Qualified opportunities entering your sales pipeline
• NPS among your highest LTV customers
• Customer expansion within your target segments

These are not vanity metrics — they’re predictive signals of future growth. If you're not tracking them, you’re managing with a rearview mirror.

Lean Analytics by Croll & Yoskovitz highlights the importance of the “One Metric That Matters”, a single, stage-appropriate KPI that aligns your team’s focus and reflects whether you're moving in the right direction.

2. Where Are You Over-Investing Without Return?

In early-stage SaaS, energy is rarely the problem — focus is. Teams pour time, money, and creative effort into dozens of areas. But without strategic clarity, those investments may not translate into meaningful growth.

Ask yourself: What are we working hard on… that isn’t actually working?

Typical culprits:

• Blog content that drives traffic, but doesn’t convert
• Building features for one loud enterprise prospect
• Sales outreach that creates activity but no pipeline
• Costly tools or consultants that don’t contribute to traction

This isn’t about blaming the team — it’s about sharpening the signal-to-noise ratio in your business. Every hour you spend on low-leverage work is an hour you’re not spending on what matters most.

In Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt describes the trap of “busy-ness as strategy” — doing a bit of everything rather than making hard trade-offs. Good strategy starts with the discipline to say no.

3. If You Stepped Away for 30 Days, What Would Break?

This one tends to land hard — especially for founder-CEOs still in the weeds.

It’s a simple question with profound implications:
If you completely stepped away for 30 days — no calls, no emails, no Slack — what would fall apart?

Would:

• Sales grind to a halt because only you can close?
• Product roadmap pause because vision lives in your head?
• Operations stall due to undocumented processes?
• Morale dip because your presence holds the culture together?

This question is really about scale readiness. If the business relies too heavily on you, it’s not yet a business — it’s a founder-powered machine. And while that might work in the short term, it severely limits long-term scalability, investor confidence, and even your own wellbeing.

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber explores this dynamic in detail — how founders often become the bottleneck in their own business by failing to create systems that allow others to lead.

These aren’t trick questions — but they’re powerful ones. They invite deeper reflection on how your business really functions — and what’s required to make it grow, sustainably.

SaaS founders are under constant pressure to move fast. But in our experience, the most meaningful growth doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from stepping back, asking the right questions, and building a business that can scale without burning out its people — or its founder.

Ready for a Reset?

If any of these questions struck a chord — or revealed more uncertainty than you'd like — we’re here to help. At Kaezn, we help SaaS leaders pause, reset, and scale on purpose.