The Two Numbers That Build or Break Every Business

Name: The Two Numbers That Build or Break Every Business
Price: 9 EUR
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Author: Lech Kaniuk
ISBN: 978-83-951628-7-9

Why LTV and CAC Define Your Strategy, Growth, and Survival

By Lech Kaniuk

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"Working with LTV and CAC has been the key foundation to enable us to grow our business to a global leader in online food ordering."

Niklas Östberg, Co-founder and CEO, Delivery Hero

The Problem

Most companies track revenue, users, and growth. Few track the two numbers that actually determine survival.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): How much profit a customer generates over time.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): What it costs to win that customer.

Get these wrong, and you'll scale yourself into bankruptcy while celebrating "growth" the whole way down.

I know because I've made these mistakes.

At OnlinePizza (now part of Delivery Hero), we discovered we were spending €45 to acquire customers worth €3. At SunRoof, no one owned the LTV metric. Both lessons cost time, money, and sleepless nights.

This book exists so you can learn these lessons in a weekend instead of a decade.

What You'll Learn

Foundation (chapters 1 to 4)

How to calculate LTV and CAC correctly (most companies get this wrong)
The LTV:CAC ratio and why 3:1 isn't always "good"
Why payback period matters more than most founders realize
Benchmarks by business model: SaaS, e-commerce, B2B, marketplaces

The Value Lens (chapters 5 to 7)

The Value Lens: the decision filter that eliminates low-impact projects
How to increase LTV: the three revenue levers and the one cost lever that destroys them
How to decrease CAC: the CAC Triangle of targeting, conversion, and efficiency

Diagnosis and strategy (chapters 8 to 10)

The LTV-CAC Growth Map: diagnose your position in four quadrants
The X-Ray: four levels of analytical depth
Simulation-driven strategy: stress-test before you spend

Installation (chapters 11 to 15)

The 90-day installation: how to put the system to work across product, marketing, finance, and customer success
The LTV-CAC Operating System: design your company around value drivers from day one
Beyond the metrics, plus the tools, templates, and tech
Building the Two Numbers Slide

What's Inside

4 Proprietary Frameworks

•The Value Lens
•LTV-CAC Growth Map
•The X-Ray
•LTV-CAC Operating System

Ready-to-Use Templates

•Executive Dashboard
•Impact Estimation Tables
•Cohort Retention Tracker
•Payback Period Calculator
•Quadrant Shift Planner

Real Case Studies

•OnlinePizza → Delivery Hero: The €45 for €3 discovery
•SunRoof: Restructuring around LTV ownership
•B2B SaaS: From 2.4x to 4.1x ratio in 9 months
•D2C brand: Catching the "sugar rush" before disaster

Actionable Worksheets

•Value Driver Sprint
•Alignment Mapping
•Sensitivity Drill
•12-Month Value Roadmap

Who This Book Is For

Founders and CEOs who want to scale profitably, not just fast
Marketing leaders who need to prove ROI and optimize spend by channel
Product managers who want to build features that actually move retention and value
Finance teams who need real unit economics for planning and fundraising
Investors who want to evaluate the true health of a company
Growth operators and anyone who makes decisions that affect customers or costs

"Can't I Just Learn This Online?"

You can learn WHAT LTV and CAC are anywhere.

What you can't get online:

The complete implementation playbooks tested across OnlinePizza, SunRoof, and FaradayX

The 14 specific red flags I've seen destroy companies, with how to fix each one

The ready-to-use worksheets for your next strategy meeting

The case study of moving from 2.4x to 4.1x LTV:CAC in 9 months

The simulation-driven strategy process that prevents expensive mistakes

The exact frameworks, in sequence, that build a value-driven organization

This book isn't theory. It's the operating manual I wish I had when I was burning cash at OnlinePizza.

About the Author

Lech Kaniuk is an entrepreneur, investor, and growth strategist.

He was part of the early team at OnlinePizza (acquired by Delivery Hero), where he learned the hard lessons of unit economics during rapid international expansion.

He founded SunRoof, scaling it across European markets while developing the frameworks in this book.

He founded FaradayX, applying LTV-CAC thinking to 15-25 year energy contracts.

This book distills 20+ years of building, scaling, and occasionally breaking companies into the operating system he uses today.

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What People Are Saying

"The framework completely changed our approach and helped accelerate our business."

Lucas Klab, Founder, AnimalHotels

"The model forced us to confront the reality of our customer segments. We adjusted our strategy and pivoted based on clear evidence."

Martyn Szczepankowski, Co-founder, SunRoof