Burn Rate
Most companies track cash burn, but that's incomplete.
Create a metabolic dashboard tracking all five burn types. You might have 12 months of cash runway but only 3 months of team morale runway. Which runs out first?
Metabolic rate is the single most important number determining whether an organism survives. How fast do you convert resources into activity? How much fuel do you burn to maintain yourself? Organisms don't die when they run out of one thing - they die when they run out of ANY critical thing.
Business Application of Burn Rate
Most companies track cash burn, but that's incomplete. You're burning multiple resources simultaneously: financial (cash, debt service), human (turnover, morale, founder attention), temporal (market window, competitor moves), reputational (customer patience, team confidence), and opportunity (what you're NOT doing). The organism dies when ANY critical resource depletes - not just cash.