A2A: What are the best product metrics?
My favorite set of metrics help instrument the movement from "interested” to “advocate." Consider “Pirate Metrics” from Doug McClure.
Acquisition: Do customers find you?
Activation: Do they sign up?
Retention: Do they come back?
Revenue: Do they pay you?
Referral: Do they tell their friends?
So what becomes key is the conversion rates. Revenue or NPS alone aren’t very good yardsticks. If you truly believe you have a good idea, these metrics will show where you need to improve.
In addition to a process retrospective, product teams should do a business retrospective periodically to analyze these metrics and take corrective action.
About Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson is a product management process coach, author, speaker, and advisor. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product marketing and management team. Before founding Under10, Steve was a Pragmatic Marketing instructor for over 15 years and personally trained thousands of product managers and hundreds of company senior executive teams. Learn more at www.under10playbook.com
In his spare time, Steve enjoys making music, and has an album available on iTunes. Check out Steve’s music at notExactlySteve.com