Company Stage Drives the Metric You Track

Business model
Two-sided Software as a User-generated
Company stage E-commerce marketplace Service Free mobile app Media content
The really big Will they buy enough for enough Will it solve a pain theyll pay for? Will they engage with content in a
question money from you? repeatable manner?
Empathy stage: How do buyers Do buyers need Do prospects Whats your Can you get Does a commu-
Problem vali- become aware of a place to sell? have a known target market? enough atten- nity exist? What
dation: getting the need? How Do sellers need need they are What similar tion around a makes it special
inside your do they try to a place to buy? pained to solve games and subject? How do and unique?
markets head find a solution? How do they today? Can they models have people consume How do others
to discover real What pain do transact today? do it with soft- worked? Are information? join it? How fast
needs you can they encounter How do they find ware? How do there examples is it growing?
solve. These tend as a result? What items? What pre- they learn about of similar pricing
to be qualitative are their demo- vents them from such solutions? and gameplay
discussions and graphics and buying through Whats the buy- habits?
open questions. tech profiles? those channels? ing process?
Empathy stage: What competes Will buyers share Will the features Does the basic Why will they Will the com-
Solution valida- with the product sales revenue, or youre offering fit game structure consume your munity come
tion. This hap- youre propos- go outside the their processes function? Do us- content? What to you? Where
pens in both ing? Whats the market? What and solve a pain ers like a basic tools, apps, and does it convene
qualitative and price elasticity of added-value well enough for MVP of core platforms deliver today? How does
quantitative ap- the product or features entitle them to part gameplay, as content to them it like to interact?
proaches, and service? you to a portion with money and shown by user today? What are its pri-
in some cases of the proceeds? tell their friends? testing? vacy needs, and
curated MVPs or Will you be able its tolerance for
regional tests. to generate list- sharing and ad-
ings? Will they vertising?
come to the mar-
ketplace?
Will it grow? Will they find you and tell others? Will they sign up, stick around, Can you grow traffic to a level that
and tell others? can be profitably monetized?
Stickiness Conversion, Rate of inven- Engagement, Onboarding; Traffic, visits, re- Content creation,
stage: Achieving shopping cart tory creation, churn, visitor/ adoption; ease turns; segment- engagement
a minimum vi- size. For acquisi- search type and user/customer of play; time to ing business funnel, spam
able product that tion: cost of find- frequency, price funnel, capac- hooks; day- metrics by topic, rates, content
engages custom- ing new buyers. elasticity, listing ity tiers, feature , week-, and category, author; and word-of-
ers in a meaning- For loyalty: per- quality, fraud utilization (or month-long RSS, email, Twit- mouth sharing,
ful, valuable way. cent of buyers rates. neglect). churn; launches; ter followers and primary acquisi-
who return in 90 abandonment; click-throughs. tion channels.
days. time played; re-
gional testing.
Virality stage: Acquisition- Acquisition of Inherent virality, App store rat- Content, virality, Content invites,
Growing adop- mode: customer sellers, acquisi- customer acqui- ings, sharing, search engine user invites, in-
tion through acquisition tion of buyers, sition cost. invites, rankings. marketing and site messaging,
inherent, artifi- costs, volume of inherent and optimization; off-site sharing.
cial, and word- sharing. Loyalty word-of-mouth promoting long
of-mouth virality; model: ability to sharing. Account time on page.
optimizing viral reactivate, vol- creation and
coefficient and ume of buyers configuration.
cycle time. who return.
Primary source Transactions Active users Ad revenue
of money
Revenue stage: Transaction val- Transactions, Upselling, cus- Download vol- Cost per engage- Ads (same as me-
Convincing users ue, revenue per commissions, tomer acquisi- umes, average ment, affiliate dia), donations,
to pay with opti- customer, ratio per-listing pric- tion cost, cus- revenue per revenues, click- user data licens-
mal pricing, then of acquisition ing, value-added tomer lifetime player, average through percent- ing.
pouring some of cost to lifetime services such as value, upselling revenue per pay- ages, number of
that money back value, direct promotion, pho- path and road- ing player, acqui- impressions.
into customer sales metrics. tography. map. sition costs.
acquisition.
Scale stage: Affiliates, chan- Other verticals, Application Spinoffs, pub- Syndication, Analytics, user
Growing the nels, white-label, related prod- programming lisher and dis- licenses, media data, private and
organization product ratings, ucts; bundling interface (API) tribution deals, and event part- third-party ad
through custom- reviews, support third-party offers traffic, Magic international ver- nerships. models, APIs.
er acquisition, costs, returns, (e.g., car rental in Number, app sions.
channel relation- RMAs and re- a vacation rental ecosystem, chan-
ships, finding funds, channel site , shipping in nels, resellers,
efficiencies, and conflict. a craft market- support costs,
participating in place , etc.) compliance, on-
a market ecosys- premise/private
tem. versions.