We looked at the finances for our company, and the way he laid it out was that we only need a very few number of customers, relative to market size, to be profitable. That's default alive. Ignore growth beyond that number, just get to that number.
Then look at growth past that.
I had modelled growth directly, and because we're in subscription hardware, there is a scaling cost. If you want to add more customers, you have to keep building more hardware, which introduces a cost.
My takeaway when forecasting is figure out your default alive state and how to get there. Once you're there, then you can look at growth.
Another way to look at it is your company is like a person dying in a hospital, and you're the doctor. You're not going to give them a work-out program and tell them to go to crossfit to get big and strong, you're going to figure out how you can keep them alive and get them out of the hospital. Once they are well, then you can get into the strength (building) stuff.
Everyday until you are profitable, your company is dying. So what are you doing to save it?