FFI Standard for Founders
The Founder Financial Infrastructure Standard applies to every growth‑focused company, regardless of business model. The requirements and benchmarks are calibrated by company type because the financial architecture, unit economics, and valuation methodology that serve a recurring revenue software business do not serve a deep tech hardware company, and vice versa.
The Standard defines seven company types in Book 0, Section 0.6. Each type has a distinct financial architecture. The links below guide you to the specific requirements, benchmarks, and glossary terms most relevant to your business model.
Company Types
Recurring Revenue
Subscription, membership, or licensing arrangements that renew periodically. Contractually committed forward revenue, net revenue retention, and cohort‑based lifetime value are the central financial metrics.
Transactional Revenue
Revenue generated through discrete transactions without a recurring commitment. Transaction volume, conversion rates, and variable cost per transaction define the unit economics.
Project Revenue
Revenue delivered through defined, time‑bounded engagements. Revenue concentration by client and project, billable backlog, and timing variance between delivery and revenue recognition are the defining financial characteristics.
Deep Tech and Hardware
Extended development cycles, significant pre‑revenue capital consumption, and a cost of goods structure that includes physical manufacturing or complex system integration. The unit cost trajectory at scale is the central financial question.
AI‑Native
Operations fundamentally structured around AI inference, agent workflows, or AI‑leveraged service delivery. Infrastructure costs dominated by compute resource consumption, non‑linear cost‑to‑scale relationships, and unit economics that prior company type frameworks do not adequately represent.
Consumer (B2C)
Individual end customers, high transaction volume, and user acquisition efficiency driving unit economics. Monetisation models vary widely—advertising, subscriptions, in‑app purchases—which requires careful definition of the unit before any metric is calculated.
B2B Enterprise
Sales to organisations with extended procurement processes, large average contract values, and multi‑year arrangements. The long revenue cycle from lead to close, high customer concentration, and payback period measured in years rather than months are the defining financial characteristics.