In 1850, French economist Frédéric Bastiat said that looking at unseen losses is essential to consider when making financial calculations.

Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee. – Frédéric Bastiat

Bastiat was a master at thinking about opportunity costs. This insight applies to SaaS companies as much as economies.

For example, when we close a big customer, we celebrate 🎉 ! But do we celebrate the customers who didn’t churn with the same gusto? How much time is spent thinking about the customer we didn’t even know we alienated, or the markets we didn’t know we missed out on?

We don’t see those costs unless we really look 👀. The best businesses think about the unseen impacts of their strategies – and as a result, they unlock revenue others didn’t even know was hiding in their ecosystem 💸.

By Aaron Olson.