The Ultimate Guide to Startup Metrics: How to Pick, Track, and Win

Choosing the right metrics is like having a GPS for your startup journey. Without them, you’re driving blind. Lean Analytics provides frameworks that simplify this complex task.

The Pirate Metrics framework—Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral—maps the customer lifecycle and highlights where to focus. For example, if activation is low, optimizing onboarding should be your priority.

Understanding your business model is crucial. SaaS startups focus heavily on churn and monthly recurring revenue, while e-commerce businesses prioritize conversion rates and average order value. Marketplaces juggle buyer and seller metrics, balancing supply and demand.

The Engines of Growth framework identifies three primary growth drivers: Sticky (retention), Viral (referrals), and Paid (advertising). Knowing which engine fuels your growth helps prioritize efforts and measure success.

As your startup evolves, so should your metrics. Early stages focus on validating problems and solutions, while later stages emphasize monetization and scaling.

One Metric That Matters (OMTM) is your guiding star. It changes with your startup’s biggest challenges and opportunities, aligning your team and accelerating learning.

Real-world examples show how companies manually tested hypotheses before building products, tracked viral coefficients to understand growth potential, and set clear benchmarks to decide when to pivot or persevere.

By mastering these frameworks and metrics, you’ll gain clarity, focus, and confidence to build a better startup faster.

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