Choosing Metrics

Track metrics that drive decisions, not just ones that look good. Revenue is an outcome — tracking it doesn’t tell you what to do differently. The metrics that matter are the ones that drive revenue: conversion rates, activation, retention, referral rates.

A good metric is actionable. When it moves, you know what caused it and what to do about it. If a metric goes red and your response is “huh, that’s bad” with no clear next step, it’s probably not worth tracking.

Vanity vs. Actionable

Vanity metrics make you feel good but don’t inform decisions. Total signups, page views, social followers — these numbers go up and to the right, but they don’t tell you if your business is healthy.

Actionable metrics connect to levers you can pull. Active users (not just signups), conversion rate (not just traffic), retention (not just acquisition). When these move, you know why and what to do.

Review Regularly

Business priorities shift. The metrics that mattered six months ago might not be the right ones today.

Schedule a quarterly review: look at each metric and ask “does this still inform decisions?” If the answer is no, remove it and track something that does. A dashboard full of stale metrics is worse than no dashboard — it creates noise and hides what matters.

Northstar Discipline

Your Northstar metrics should be the 1-3 numbers that best represent business health. Not 10. Not “all the important ones.”

If you can’t explain why a metric is Northstar in one sentence, it probably isn’t. When everything is critical, nothing is.

Ownership Matters

Assign every metric an owner. Not a team — a person. Someone who checks it, understands why it moved, and takes action when it’s off track.

Metrics without owners become numbers everyone sees and nobody acts on.