Applying position, velocity, acceleration, and jerk to SMB revenue data.
Simple subtraction. No calculus required. What the numbers are already telling you.
Meet Coastal Provisions
A specialty food company. 18 employees. Revenue last year: about $1.4M. They sell online, through a few retail partners, and at regional markets.
In April, the owner is looking at four months of growth. Revenue climbed from $95k to $124k. Up 30%. Things are moving.
But jerk just turned negative. Then acceleration. It takes four more months before velocity — the number you'd notice — turns negative too. By August, revenue is falling. By December, it's $114k.
Jerk saw it in April. The owner saw it in August. That's the gap the framework closes.
Position
= Revenue this month
Where you are right now. A snapshot.
Velocity
= This month − Last month
Are you growing or shrinking? By how much?
Acceleration
= This velocity − Last velocity
Is your growth speeding up or slowing down?
Jerk
= This accel − Last accel
Is the slowdown itself getting worse? The earliest warning.
12 Months of Coastal Provisions Revenue
Click any revenue number to edit it and see how the derivatives change.
Month
Position (Revenue)
Velocity (Δ Revenue)
Acceleration (Δ Velocity)
Jerk (Δ Acceleration)
Click any revenue cell to edit. Derivatives recalculate automatically.
Seasonal businesses: If your revenue has natural peaks and valleys (holiday rushes, summer slowdowns, back-to-school spikes), month-over-month derivatives will read the season, not your business. Switch to Year-over-Year mode above — it compares each month to the same month last year, stripping out seasonality. You'll need 24 months of data, but the signal is cleaner.
Visualized: The Four Layers
Position says
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Velocity says
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Acceleration says
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Jerk says
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How to Do This in Excel (5 minutes)
Column A
Month names: Jan, Feb, Mar...
Column B
Your monthly revenue (this year)
Column C
=B3-B2 (Velocity — month-over-month)
Column D
=C4-C3 (Acceleration)
Column E
=D5-D4 (Jerk)
That's it. Five columns. Drag the formulas down. You now have four layers of insight into your business that most companies never see. No calculus. No special tools. Just subtraction.
For seasonal businesses: Add Column F with last year's revenue for the same month. Then use =B2-F2 for velocity instead. This compares March 2026 to March 2025, not March to February. Same formulas for acceleration and jerk from there.
How to Read Your Pattern
You don't need to memorize 16 combinations. There are six patterns that matter. Find yours.
P +V +A +J flat
Healthy Growth
Revenue is up, growth is increasing, and the rate of increase is steady. This is the pattern every business wants. It rarely lasts forever — but while it does, invest in capacity.
Action: Build. Hire. Expand. The wind is real.
P +V +A −J flat
The Fade
Still growing, but growth is slowing. This is the most common pattern owners miss because the top line still looks "up." It's the business equivalent of a car still moving forward but taking its foot off the gas.
Action: Diagnose now. Don't wait for velocity to confirm what acceleration already told you.
P +V +A −J −
The Hidden Cliff
This is Coastal Provisions. Revenue is up. Growth is positive. But the slowdown is accelerating. Jerk is negative — meaning the deceleration itself is getting worse. This is the earliest warning. You have 2-3 months before it shows up in velocity.
Action: Act now. Cut costs, launch a new channel, renegotiate terms. By the time position confirms the problem, your options narrow.
P +V −A −J flat
The Turn
Revenue is still above where it started, but it's now declining month over month. Velocity turned negative. Most owners notice here — but by now the turn already happened two layers ago.
Action: This is triage territory. Protect cash. Identify what changed. The question isn't "are we in trouble" — it's "how deep and how long."
P flatV ~0A +J +
The Seed
Revenue is flat. Nothing seems to be happening. But acceleration and jerk are both positive — something is starting to push. A new product, a marketing channel, a seasonal shift. The position number won't move for months, but the deeper signals say movement is coming.
Action: Feed what's working. The signal is real even though the result isn't visible yet. Most people quit here because "nothing is happening." The derivatives say otherwise.
P −V −A −J −
Full Contraction
Everything is negative. Revenue is down, falling faster, and the decline is accelerating. This is rare in isolation — usually external (recession, lost major client, regulatory hit). The jerk signal here tells you whether the contraction is getting worse or stabilizing.
Action: Survival mode. Preserve cash. Watch for jerk to turn positive — that's the first sign the bottom is forming, long before revenue confirms it.
What This Means for Buying or Valuing a Business
Standard valuation uses discounted cash flow — projecting future revenue and discounting it back. It's a position-based method. It assumes the current trajectory continues.
The derivatives tell you whether that assumption is safe.
Company A
$1.2M revenue
Positive velocity. Positive acceleration. Jerk is flat. Growth is real, steady, and not decelerating. Worth paying for the trajectory.
Company B
$1.4M revenue
Positive velocity. But acceleration is negative. Jerk is also negative. Growth is slowing, and the slowdown is getting worse. Position says B is worth more. Jerk says A is.