5 Lessons That Will Make You Rethink How You Measure Progress
List of things that look like progress but aren’t.
A lot of times you put a lot of energy but aren’t really able to move the wall, no matter how much you push it. Work is the multiplication of the force you apply and the final displacement. So if you aren’t moving things, you aren’t really working.
We always talk about setting goals and then working our way towards them. But when founders set bad goals, they create bad metrics around them and try to hit those metrics. They just hit walls.
This means that those founders are optimising for things that look like progress but aren’t. This is dangerous for startups. Founders that aim for bad goals measure progress in ways that don’t help the business grow and succeed.
If you find yourself thinking that the following things are work and will help you in your progress, you need to seriously rethink.
1. Fundraising
Fundraising is a milestone. Do not confuse raising money with success. Many founders do that. Fundraising is not the goal. It is just a tool to accomplish your real goals.
When you raise a lot of money, the press likes to talk about you too, because this is news. You get talked about and the external validation can surely be motivating, but getting talked about is not success. ‘Getting published is progress’ is one of the worst things that founders can tell themselves.
If you’re looking to get press as a means of building SEO, then press mentions can constitute progress. That only makes sense if SEO is part of your strategy and you’re measuring things properly.
Make something people want and focus on giving value to your customers, day in and day out. The rest is fugazi.
2. Getting Mentioned by Someone Famous
It really feels good to say you met someone famous and she liked your startup idea. Famous people are really interested in startups these days. I am not saying that you shouldn’t care if you meet a movie star and talk to her about the great things that you are building. Just don’t mistake it for a sign of success.
Getting retweeted by someone famous is similar to press mentions. It can even be worse sometimes. When founders are trying to achieve these kinds of things they’re actually working on their startup’s brand at the expense of their product. That’s definitely the wrong thing to do.
Build the product and get users. Branding without product and users is just fake PR.
Give value to your users and build an audience so that they brag about your product. Word of mouth is powerful.
3. Conversations with Large Enterprises
This is a big one for companies that rely on enterprise sales. Usually, these ‘conversations’ are scattered and don’t really lead anywhere. You feel that you’ve made a good sales pitch and would get a call soon, but it rarely happens. Same is with investors. These conversations in the air rarely lead anywhere. Just meeting and talking isn’t progress.
Conversations that are actually progress are generally paired with a clear sales proposition.
Make sales, not talk.
4. Number of Registrations
People who register for your product but don’t use it aren’t actually helpful. It might feel good to show 10k downloads of your app, but it doesn’t really mean anything here. In fact, this is probably a bad sign because it means that people don’t actually want to use your service.
Focus on increasing the number of active users and reduce your churn rate.
5. Hiring
Your speed of hiring is not progress. It may be expansion in volume, but it can become expansion at the cost of scaling. When you hire because you met somebody great who you think would be a good part of the team, is usually not a very good sign and definitely not progress.
If you’re hiring because you can’t handle the load on your service or product, then it probably is a good sign and it is progress. But this usually happens after you’ve lots of super enthusiastic users.
Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.
Afterthought
Don’t confuse ‘putting effort’ with ‘moving things.’
Startups are tough. Fewer founders know how to do it the right way. Doing all the above can look like work to your supportive friends and worried parents, but they aren’t really progress. Avoid them or it won’t be far when the press will mention your shut down.
