Editor’s note: Jake Finkelstein, founder and president of MethodSavvy, says startups must understand better how to utilize marketing dollars. They can do so by studying their “funnel math.” What’s that? His post in ExitEvent explains. This is the latest post in the news partnership between WRALTechWire and ExitEvent.

DURHAM, N.C. - Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch. We ignore what most people look at as impossible challenges and see problems that have solutions. We believe. And work hard. We find a way to make it happen.

But that doesn’t mean that a young company trying to take its great idea to market is a pretty thing to watch. Finding product market fit is difficult even for seasoned marketers. Worse yet, startups regularly struggle to understand how to properly invest in customer acquisition and retention.

Why? Because too few of us have calculated our sales funnel math.

The Secret To Marketing Success Is For Your Business to Make More Money From Customers Than It Costs You To Acquire Them

I know. That’s obvious. Yet in practice, it’s harder than it seems. Many of us have a gut-level desire to come up with fun, creative marketing ideas, throw them against the wall and wait for the revenue to roll in. Even if that works—and that’s a long shot—that doesn’t mean that it will be profitable.

Thankfully, there is a reasonably easy way to build a model around how much you should spend to acquire and retain a customer… and then compare it against your real-world performance to keep you on track.

To get the details about the concept, read the full post at ExitEvent.