Open Design / Board Pre-Read DATA, KPI & FINANCE · Q3 FY26

Revenue-Driver Story / Prepared for the board & finance leadership

Ecosystem-attach,
not seats, moves ARR.

A plugin-attached account expands 2.9x faster than a standalone seat. $22.6M ARR · 131% NRR · 84% gross margin · 4.3-month CAC payback

OPEN DESIGN · FINANCE & STRATEGY P.01

Open Design / Contents CONTENTS

The five annotated points of this narrative

Five decisions, hung on the ARR curve.

OPEN DESIGN · FINANCE & STRATEGY P.02

Open Design / Chapter 1 · The Answer HEADLINE ANSWER

Decision / Where should the board point next quarter's spend

Fund ecosystem attach,
not paid-acquisition seats.

Every account that installs a plugin or a design system in its first 30 days expands 2.9x faster than one that doesn't. Seat-only accounts flatten by month four; attach-driven accounts keep compounding. Paid acquisition buys the seat — the ecosystem buys the expansion.

2.9x

Expansion, attach vs. seat-only

42%

New ARR from attached accounts

$0

Inference COGS — BYOK by design

OPEN DESIGN · COHORT DATA · FY26 Q1-Q3 P.03

Open Design / Chapter 2 · Metric Proof METRIC PROOF

Decision / Is the attach-effect real or noise

131%

Net revenue retention · attached cohort vs. 96% seat-only

Twelve months of billing data settle it: the two cohorts split the moment a plugin or design system installs, and the gap never closes. This is the point the finance model was built on — the one inflection marked in orange.

OPEN DESIGN · ONE INFLECTION, MARKED EXACTLY ONCE P.04

Open Design / Chapter 3 · Driver Tree TWO LEVERS COMPARED

LEVER A · PAID ACQUISITION SPEND $1.20 CAC / $1 ARR

LEVER B · ECOSYSTEM ATTACH (PLUGINS + DESIGN SYSTEMS) $0.28 CAC / $1 ARR

OPEN DESIGN · ONE DOLLAR, TWO RETURNS P.05

Open Design / Chapter 4 · FY27 Forecast FORECAST

Decision / What we are underwriting for FY27

The base case, one line.

$54M

FY27 ARR, base case · 2.4x on FY26 run-rate

OPEN DESIGN · BASE CASE ASSUMES NO NEW LEVER, ONLY THIS ONE HOLDING P.06

Open Design / Chapter 4 · Four Levers DRIVER TREE, EXPANDED

Decision / Which of the four sub-drivers to fund first

Fund distribution before headcount.

Gross margin · % (BYOK, no inference COGS)

71 → 84%

GitHub stars · top-of-funnel proxy

76K+

Plugins shipped · attach surface

217+

OPEN DESIGN · FY26 Q3 ACTUALS · CURVES ILLUSTRATIVE P.07

Open Design / Chapter 5 · The Ask RECOMMENDED MOVE

Decision / Three moves for the next two quarters

Reallocate $2.4M toward the attach engine.

MOVE 01 · CUT PAID SPEND 20%

Redirect $900K from ads

Paid acquisition sits at 11-month payback; every dollar moved to attach clears in 4.3 months.

MOVE 02 · DOUBLE THE PLUGIN TEAM

6 to 12 engineers, this half

217+ plugins already drive 42% of new ARR; the constraint is supply, not demand.

MOVE 03 · LAUNCH ENTERPRISE SUPPORT

Monetize the attach cohort directly

A paid support tier on top of the free core; modeled at $6.8M incremental ARR by Q4.

OPEN DESIGN · EVERY DOLLAR FOLLOWS THE FASTER PAYBACK P.08

Open Design / Voices from the Room VALIDATION

We stopped asking how many seats we sold and started asking how many accounts touched a plugin in week one — that single question now runs the growth plan.

— Finance Partner, quarterly business review

OPEN DESIGN · FINANCE & STRATEGY P.09

Open Design / The Ask BOARD APPROVAL

Approve · $2.4M reallocation · FY27 base case $54M ARR

Fund the lever
that already works.

Ask: approve the reallocation, the plugin-team headcount, and the enterprise support launch this session — next review at Q1 FY27.

OPEN DESIGN · REVENUE-DRIVER BOARD PRE-READ · FY26 FIN.

Ecosystem-attach,not seats, moves ARR.