How To Get The Most Out Of Your Early Product Metrics
In the early days of a new product, the numbers we track—the metrics—shouldn't be treated as verdicts. They're not there to crown your idea a success or condemn it as a failure. Early metrics are operational breadcrumbs—signals that reveal where users get stuck, what needs fixing and which assumptions need to be rethought.
It's easy to confuse early signals with signs of success—especially when dashboards look great on the surface.
I've seen this firsthand across multiple launches. On paper, a dashboard can look impressive: thousands of sign-ups, high activation rates, glowing ratings. But if you look closer, what seems like traction is often friction disguised as progress.
One example: In our smart access platform, we initially tracked how many times drivers successfully unlocked gates. The numbers were big and reassuring—until we realized many of those 'successful' unlocks were the same frustrated driver clicking over and over because there was no clear confirmation the gate was open.
This is why early metrics should be designed to help teams learn, not just look good in an investor update.
Five Metrics Every Early-Stage Product Should Track
I recommend every product team start with five foundational metrics. None of them declare success. All of them force you to ask better questions.
1. Time To First Value (TTFV)
How quickly does a user reach their first meaningful outcome? For an e-commerce platform, it's not when someone signs up, it's when they successfully place an order and receive their first product without issues. This metric reflects how smooth your onboarding, product discovery and checkout experience really are. If users don't get to value quickly, they often don't come back.
2. Activation Rate
What percentage of new users hit a milestone that proves they've engaged meaningfully? A good activation metric might be: User adds an item to their cart and checks out within 24 hours of sign-up. This goes beyond passive browsing and captures real purchase intent. A low activation rate could point to friction in product search, unclear pricing, or trust barriers at checkout.
3. Repeat Usage In A Short Window
Do users come back quickly to do the same task again? Traditional retention metrics are often too broad or slow to reveal early signals of value. Instead, track whether people return in seven or 14 days to do the same task again. Repeated use in context is a stronger indicator of product-market fit than one-time curiosity.
4. Top Drop-Off Point
Where in the journey do most users abandon the process and why? It's not enough to know your overall conversion rate. Pinpoint whether users are dropping off at the product page, after adding to cart or during payment. For instance, a high abandonment rate at checkout could reveal trust issues, hidden costs or UX problems with the payment flow.
5. Qualitative Feedback Volume And Themes
What are users telling you, in their own words about what's not working? Numbers show you what happened, but feedback tells you why. Categorize support tickets, surveys and reviews into clear themes. Often, your biggest opportunity hides inside the smallest complaints.
These metrics aren't permanent. As your product matures, they should evolve with it. But picking the right metrics is only half the challenge, what really matters is how you interpret them.
Discovery Metrics Vs. Validation Metrics
One of the most common traps is treating early metrics as validation—proof that your idea is working. But discovery metrics have a different purpose: They break your assumptions so you can build the right thing faster.
I ask three questions to tell them apart:
1. Is this metric helping us learn, or is it just there for reporting?
2. What decision will this help us make in the next sprint?
3. Is it tied to a hypothesis we're testing?
Daily active users (DAUs), for example, often look like success. But if people aren't completing meaningful tasks, those DAUs are empty calories. A stronger early signal might be the percentage of users who complete a workflow without retrying or contacting support.
Discovery metrics influence what you build next. Validation metrics only reassure you that everything's fine. Metrics guide better decisions only if they're designed well. That's where the VET framework comes in.
The VET Metrics Framework
To design metrics that matter, I use what I call the VET Metrics Framework. It's a simple test:
• Value: Does this metric reflect an outcome that matters to users or the business? Counting clicks or pageviews doesn't help if nobody is completing the core task.
• Evolvability: Can the metric adapt as your product matures? A KPI that only works in a beta test will quickly become obsolete.
• Trustworthiness: Does this metric produce actionable insight? For example, average session time is ambiguous—longer isn't always better. You need clarity, not just data.
When we built early KPIs for Amazon Key, we didn't settle for tracking how many times someone pressed the unlock button. We measured the percentage of deliveries completed without intervention—a metric that showed whether the system was truly solving the access problem. Of course, tracking progress is only useful if you're focused on solving the right thing. So how do you know you are?
Five Ways To Know If You're Solving The Right Problem
No single metric can answer this question, but you can triangulate using five lenses:
1. Repeated Use In Context: Are people coming back to solve the same problem?
2. Feedback Alignment: Do users describe the value in their own words the way you intended?
3. Problem Substitution: What old workaround did your product replace?
4. Tolerance Of Friction: Do users keep going even when parts of the experience are clunky?
5. Value Hypothesis Testing: Can you validate demand and usability before building everything out?
These signals give you a clearer picture of real-world fit. Even with the right metrics and mindset, it's easy to fall into common traps, especially when data looks deceptively positive.
Measurement Traps That Sink Early Products
Even experienced teams fall into familiar pitfalls:
• Tracking What's Easy, Not What Matters: Just because you can measure it doesn't mean it helps.
• Measuring Too Much, But Learning Too Little: A crowded dashboard is usually a sign of unclear priorities.
• Overvalidating And Underexploring: Early KPIs should challenge your assumptions, not confirm them.
• Lagging Indicators Masquerading As Insight: NPS and 30-day retention are too slow to guide early decisions.
• Ignoring Qualitative Feedback: Pair behavioral data with user comments to see the full story.
If your metrics are only telling you everything is fine, you're not measuring deeply enough. Early metrics should make you a little uncomfortable. That's their job. They exist to surface what's not working so you can fix it before you scale.
This week, take a fresh look at your dashboard—not just for trends, but for blind spots.
If your metrics aren't teaching you something new, you're not measuring deeply enough.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fast Company
9 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Leadership Isn't Masculine—Or Feminine. It's Human
When Melanie Dulbecco became CEO of Torani Syrups 34 years ago, she stepped in as its first non-family leader with less than $1 million in annual sales and an uncertain future. What happened next defied expectations. Under her leadership, Torani has averaged more than 20% annual growth year over year for three decades—doubling in size every few years. In 2024, the company reached $500 million in sales and is on track to hit $1 billion by 2030. Dulbecco's unexpected success is attributable to her untraditional leadership style. She says, 'Those financial numbers are the lagging indicators. The leading indicators have everything to do with the growth and development of our people.' Dulbecco's part of a growing wave of leaders embracing a more holistic model with the belief that the most effective leaders aren't defined by gendered traits—they draw from the full range of human strengths. By blending a wide range of 'masculine' and 'feminine' traits like care, vulnerability, confidence, and decisiveness, these leaders are building the most resilient, high-performing organizations today. This shift in approach challenges decades of conventional wisdom, dating back to Dr. Virginia E. Schein's 1973 'think manager, think male' study. Schein identified a persistent association between leadership and traditionally masculine qualities. This 'think manager, think male' effect wasn't just American—it was global, and it's been replicated in numerous studies ever since. This narrow definition of leadership has long devalued traits like empathy, care, and emotional intelligence, often deemed 'soft skills.' This overemphasis on masculine leadership leaves many leaders worrying about expressing anything deemed feminine in the workplace—especially women leaders in male-dominated environments concerned about being taken seriously. Studies show that, while effective leaders display traditionally 'masculine' qualities like confidence, strategic thinking, and decisiveness, they also display 'feminine' traits like collaboration, empathy, resilience, and communication. Here's how three of these often-overlooked traits drive exceptional results: How Caring Boosts Engagement, Retention, and Growth Care isn't a 'soft skill.' It's a strategic one. In 2024, employee engagement dropped to 21%, only the second decline in more than a decade (the other during the COVID-19 pandemic). This disengagement—70% of which is tied to a person's manager—is estimated to cost the global economy over $400 billion in lost productivity last year. Leaders who can engage their teams will shape the future of work, and all they have to do is go back to the basics: caring for people. Employees who feel cared for are three times more likely to be engaged, 70% less likely to experience burnout, and 36% more likely to report thriving outside of work. Yet only 25% of employees feel their manager genuinely cares about their well-being. Cofounder and co-CEO of California-based EO Products Susan Griffin-Black prioritizes a caring leadership approach, striving to ensure her employees feel cared for. 'We're all human and want the same things: safety, belonging, meaning, and to be loved and cared for,' she says. Her people-first leadership is one reason the company's engagement rates rank 33 points above the industry average. Care also drives retention. Nearly 75 % of employees say they want a manager who leads with empathy and support. When they have one, they're 70% less likely to be looking for a new job. Pete Stavros, co-head of global private equity at KKR, recently brought the head of Stanford's Neuroscience Lab Jamil Zaki in to stress test Stavros's observation that the best-performing CEOs in KKR's portfolio were the most empathetic. The results? The CEOs who indexed highest on empathy had retention and engagement rates 1.5 to more than 2 times stronger than the benchmark. Why Deep Listening Builds Trust, Fuels Innovation, and Enhances Belonging Great leadership is built on deep listening. When managers are attentive and communicate openly, they drive higher engagement, stronger retention, and better team performance. But too many leaders still miss the mark: 86% of employees say not everyone in their organization is fairly heard—and more than 60% say their leaders have ignored their voice. When employees feel heard, they're 4.6 times more likely to perform at their best. They're also more likely to report a sense of belonging—and have some of the highest engagement levels in the organization. Griffin-Black says deep listening is one of the leadership skills she leans on most, just like other holistic leaders such as restaurateur Erin Wade. When Wade opened mac-and-cheese restaurant Homeroom in Oakland in 2011, she set out to restore dignity in food industry jobs. Her core strategy? Listening to her team. Wade held optional, paid weekly meetings for her entire 100+ person team—from dishwashers to managers—to hear their perspectives and co-create decisions. She practiced open-book management, shared company financials, and reviewed daily employee feedback each week. The message was clear: your voice matters here. At Homeroom, employee tenure averaged 2.5 years, compared to the industry norm of just 90 days. Financially, the restaurant consistently ranked in the top 1% nationwide while Wade was at the helm. The Critical Link Between Vulnerability and Team Performance While Dr. Brené Brown has brought more attention to the importance of vulnerability—which she defines as 'uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure'—to leadership, many leaders still struggle with being vulnerable at work. Just 24% of senior leaders say they show vulnerability in the workplace. It's not surprising though, given that many were taught to equate leadership with invulnerability. But those who break that mold call vulnerability a game-changing skill. Vulnerable leaders admit mistakes, acknowledge what they don't know, and stay open to others' ideas. CEO of Charter Next Generation (CNG) Kathy Bolhous—one of the leaders in KKR's portfolio who scored highest on the empathy index—regularly solicits opinions and ideas for improvement from her more than 2,000 employees. When she does so, she's open about the fact that she doesn't have all the answers. When leaders model vulnerability like this, their employees are 5.3 times more likely to trust them. Being vulnerable is also proven to boost creativity and innovation. These key benefits help explain how Bolhous has grown CNG from a $50 million valuation in 2010 to a present-day valuation of $5 billion. In addition to vulnerability, the two additional leadership skills Bolhous ties to her success: care and listening. The Holistic Leadership Approach Holistic leaders don't rely on a single trait. They move fluidly between the best traits regardless of association with 'masculine' or 'feminine'—vulnerability and drive, humility and confidence, compassion and accountability. They lead with a full range of human qualities, adjusting based on what their people and context require. And their organizations thrive because of it: higher engagement, deeper trust, stronger innovation, and longer employee retention. To succeed in the evolving workplace, leaders must unlearn outdated playbooks. This shift isn't about gender. It's about range. The leaders who succeed in the modern workplace are those who know when to be bold, when to be quiet, when to challenge, and when to nurture. They don't perform a role. They embody their whole humanity.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump signs executive order to stop banks from cutting off crypto
Trump signs executive order to stop banks from cutting off crypto originally appeared on TheStreet. On Aug. 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at what the administration characterizes as the ideological "debanking" of crypto individuals and organizations from U.S. banks. The order explicitly instructs federal banking regulators to eliminate 'reputational risk' as a basis for scrutinizing or severing relationships with customers. The White House argued that this vague term — often used by the Federal Reserve and FDIC — has been weaponized to cut off crypto firms from the U.S. financial system. 'The digital assets industry has also been the target of unfair debanking initiatives,' the White House said in a fact sheet. 'These practices erode public trust in banking institutions and regulators, harm livelihoods, freeze payrolls, and impose significant financial burdens on law-abiding Americans.'Trump's move directly targets what the crypto industry has long described as 'Operation Choke Point 2.0' — a term popularized by Castle Island Ventures co-founder Nic Carter in 2023 to describe an alleged backdoor campaign by regulators to isolate crypto businesses from the banking sector. The original Operation Choke Point was a 2013 DOJ initiative that pressured banks to de-risk from entire industries like payday lenders and firearm can't blacklist crypto The executive order mandates that federal agencies such as the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC remove 'reputational risk' considerations from their internal guidelines and training materials. The Fed previously defined reputational risk as the 'potential that negative publicity regarding an institution's business practices… will cause a decline in the customer base.' Crypto advocates say that definition allowed regulators to subtly discourage banks from servicing crypto firms without having to admit bias. The order further directs regulators to audit prior debanking incidents and provide a report detailing whether any financial institution denied services unlawfully based on ideology. Those found guilty could face sanctions, including fines and restitution. Gemini-JPMorgan dispute intensified pressure The executive order comes weeks after a public clash between crypto exchange Gemini and JPMorgan, where the bank refused to onboard the exchange. Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss accused JPMorgan of carrying out a 'modern-day Operation Choke Point,' aimed at suffocating fintech innovation. Ten exchanges reportedly sent a joint letter to President Trump shortly after the incident, urging the administration to act. The August 7 order appears to be a response. Financial institutions regulated by the Small Business Administration are also now required to review accounts previously closed on ideological grounds — and reinstate them where appropriate. Trump signs executive order to stop banks from cutting off crypto first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 7, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 7, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What is the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025? Status update on Trump stimulus check
The American Worker Rebate Act of 2025 was introduced after President Donald Trump floated the idea of a tariff rebate check for taxpayers, much like the stimulus checks that were given during the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 25, responding to a reporter that asked about all of the "tariff revenue coming in" and the "possibility of a rebate to the American public,' Trump said: "We're thinking about that actually." "We have so much money coming in, we're thinking about a little rebate. But the big thing we want to do is pay down debt. But we're thinking about a rebate." A few days after the presidents' tariff rebate comments, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley announced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025 aimed at sending checks to Americans. Here's what to know about a possible stimulus or rebate check, how much and who would qualify. What is the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025? Hawley's bill, called the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025, would provide a minimum of $600 per adult and dependent child, or $2,400 for a family of four, according to news officials. The benefit would be reduced by 5% for joint filers with an adusted gross income above $150,000 or single filers earning more than $75,000 individually. According to an analysis from The Budget Lab at Yale released July 28, Trump's tariffs could cost U.S. households an average of $2,400 in 2025 through higher prices passed on from companies paying higher tariff taxes. The Treasury Department said on July 25, that the U.S. government posted a $27 billion surplus in June, following a $316 billion deficit in May. Customs duties totaled approximately $27 billion for the month, up from $23 billion in May and 301% higher than June 2024. On an annual basis, tariff collections have totaled $113 billion, or 86% more than a year ago. The bill would allow for a larger rebate if the tariff revenue exceeds projections. Are we getting a stimulus check or Trump tariff rebate in 2025? Trump floated the idea of using part of the governement revenue being generated by the new tariffs and returning it to taxpayers of a certain income level in the form of a rebate check. The rebate idea would be similar to the stimulus checks sent during the pandemic. A rebate is a partial refund of the purchase price that a consumer paid, often upon meeting certain conditions — more like a discount that is refunded after the purchase versus a discount that is applied at the point of sale. A stimulus check on the other hand, is a direct payment to encourage spending and stimulate the economy by putting money directly into the consumers' hands. In February, Trump said he would consider the plan to pay out $5,000 stimulus checks to taxpayers in the form of a 'DOGE dividend' during a summit in Miami. He explained it as using part of the 20% of the savings identified by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and giving it back to taxpayers. However, he has not shared any further specifics or details about the possible 'DOGE dividend' or its certainty since then. Are we getting an economic relief package in 2025? While speculation about a of $2,000 has surfaced on social media and unverified websites, there has been no official confirmation of any additional economic relief package in 2025 from Congress or the IRS to support this claim. Any such news should be taken with caution as it could be misinformation or attempted fraud. Maria Francis is a Pennsylvania-based journalist with the Mid-Atlantic Connect Team. This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Are we getting a stimulus check? Economic relief package 2025 rebate Solve the daily Crossword
