Existing customers drive cash flow and equity value through net retained revenue, but they resist change. Non-customers push you to innovate and evolve. Growing companies face constant tension between keeping the base happy and building what the market actually needs.
You probably have two challenges: your customers and your non-customers. Your customers, you want to keep happy. You want to retain them. This is where your NRR, or net retained revenue, comes from. This is probably the biggest source of your cash flow because their cost to serve is going to be very low and they have high trust with your company. Initially, they become very important for your equity story, right? Because it's your retention story that increases your equity value per dollar of MRR. But later, they can become problematic because they want your company to be as is. Like the friends you hung out with on the couch, they don't want you to change. They don't want you to become something new. Your non-customers, on the other hand, definitely want you to become something new. Because as time evolves, the market changes. And the needs of the market change. And your non-customers need something different than your customers did when they first bought from you. Those changes in the market and that spreading divide is a challenge for all businesses.
