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Meaningless Metrics   Some metrics are actually meaningless and tell you little about the business. Metrics should demonstrate customer interest and satisfaction through commitment of time or dollars. Here's a list of metrics to avoid: Number of downloads - by itself, it doesn't show the level of interest or progress. A…

Marketplace Metrics  Here are the key metrics for marketplace startups: Match rate - the rate at which buyers and sellers engage with each other. To calculate, take the number of transactions in which there is a successful match and divide by the total number of attempted transactions. Time to match…

Customer Traction Metrics In raising funding, customer traction is a key focus point. Here are the metrics for measuring your traction: Customer acquisition - this includes all sources of leads such as website, email, social media, and referrals, as well conversion of leads to customers. You can look at these…

Challenges With North Star Metrics The North Star Metric seeks to capture the essence of a business in just one metric. It makes decision-making easier. Anything that doesn't foster that metric is deprioritized. It does change over time as the company's priorities change especially with growth. It's not always a…

Finding Your North Star Metric The North Star Metric is the one metric that drives the growth of the core business. Founders use it to focus the company around a common goal. Some startups focus on signups, others focus on retention, and still, others focus on engagement. If you don't…

Operational Metrics An efficient operation is one key to a startup's success. Here are operational metrics you can use to check your startup: Basic efficiency - measures the overall efficiency of the business.   To calculate, take operating expenses divided by the revenues.   The smaller the number, the more efficient the…

Product Metrics The product is the core focus of the early-stage company. Here are two key metrics for understanding the performance of your product: The Heart Metric measures the quality of the user experience with the product. Here are the components of it: 1. Happiness - measures user satisfaction and…

Scale-Stage Metrics After the growth phase comes the scale phase in which you ramp up the business. Here are the key metrics to consider at the scale stage: 1. Break-even per customer - this shows how many days until the new customer turns profitable. This is a key factor if…

Growth-Stage Metrics Once you have product-market fit and start seeing growth, consider these metrics for your business: 1. Activation rate - the percentage of users achieving some step in activating your product. This helps you determine where users are dropping off. 2. Active users - the total number of users…

Startup Customer Success Metrics Once you have customers, the next step is to measure their success with your product. Here are some key metrics to use: Net Promoter Score - also referred to as NPS, this metric measures how loyal the customers are to the company. The metric asks the…