Revenue here is sold through affiliates and white-label partners. Each new partner onboards a whole block of users at once, so monthly revenue climbs in discrete steps. Until the venture is cash-positive it lives off the seed; the investor, in turn, wants to know when the cumulative revenue has climbed high enough to equal the sum they put in. The horizontal axis is time (months); the staircase is monthly revenue, and the two dashed markers flag the cash-positive month and the month revenue repays the investment.
n(t) = min(⌊t/τ⌋, N) · Revenue: R(t) = n(t)·u·p·(1−c)π(t) = R(t) − A·Δn − F · Cash (lives off seed): C(t) = seed + ΣπΣ R(t) ≥ seed