Avoid Vanity Metrics

Vanity Metrics Will Screw You Over

Insight from First Round Review

Avoid vanity metrics that investors track.

The metrics you should focus on are how to create more value for your business.

A great framework is to ask if the metric shows how valuable your company is right now OR how you can create more value.

If you create more value when you achieve a metric, this is an operational metric worth following. An example is:

• The number of minutes a day your product actually gets used

• How long for the user to get the service promised

• How many times does a customer reach out to support

How do you find your clarity metric?

I recommend combing through your business model. You need to spend time understanding the customer's earliest contact points with your service.

After mapping out their earliest touches, you need to figure out where they spend most of their time once they have the product.

At Firstbase.io, my last startup, we incorporated over 30,000 startups in the US. We found that our customer satisfaction fell a ton if we delayed sending incorporation documents by even 1 day.

Once we shifted our clarity metrics to documents in customers' hands, we saw a massive improvement in word of mouth.

What is your clarity metric?

Go ahead and respond here with your clarity metrics. I can let you know if you are on the right track!