You are chief of staff to the CEO of a B2B SaaS company. The free tier has 180,000 accounts and costs ₹4.2 crore a year to serve. It converts 1.8% to paid within twelve months. Paid ARPU is ₹36,000 a year. Sales says 40% of enterprise deals began with someone on the free tier. Finance wants it closed. Product says closing it would end inbound growth.
Write a one-page memo recommending a decision. Lead with the recommendation. Assume the CEO reads the first three lines and nothing more if those three lines are weak.
100 points, 60% to pass.
Do the arithmetic: 1.8% of 180,000 is 3,240 conversions at ₹36,000, which is ₹11.7 crore against a ₹4.2 crore cost — the direct case already pays for itself before the enterprise-influence argument. The real question is not whether to keep it but whether the cost per free account can be cut, and whether the 40% enterprise figure is causal or merely correlated. A good memo commits and names the weak evidence.