1 min lesson
Turning soft gains into dollars
Make the call in this situation: "A CTO says 'every AI vendor promises 10x developer productivity - why should I believe you?' How do you respond?" Explain what supports it.
Step 1 of 2
Turning soft gains into dollars
Finance does not buy hours, it buys money. The translation is one line of arithmetic and the discipline is in the inputs, not the formula.
- Annual value
- hours saved per dev per week × 48 weeks × loaded hourly cost × number of seats
- Loaded cost
- Salary plus benefits, taxes, equity, overhead - usually 1.25–1.4× base, ask them for their figure
- Hours saved
- Pulled from POC measurement or a conservative self-report, not a press release
- Realization haircut
- Discount raw hours by 30–50%; not every saved minute becomes shipped work
The realization haircut is what separates a credible model from a laughed-out-of-the-room one.
The fastest way to lose a technical buyer is the inflated 10x claim. Engineers and CTOs know the literature is mixed and that saved keystrokes do not equal saved cycle time. Quote a modest, measured number you can source and you gain credibility; quote a slide-deck multiplier and you lose the room for the rest of the cycle.
The strongest ROIReturn on Investment. The value gained versus what it cost, the language an economic buyer funds deals in. Press Enter for the full definition. input is a number the buyer gave you in discovery. "You told me code review waits four days and that's blocking releases" beats any industry average, because they cannot dispute their own words. Generic benchmarks invite a debate about your sources; their quantified pain ends the debate.