Find your Metrics that Matter BoS Masterclass Session 2

1. startupcorestrengths.com
Matt Lerner FEB 2021
METRICS
THAT MATTER
–
You Get What You Measure...Choose Carefully
startupcorestrengths.com

2. startupcorestrengths.com
Matt Lerner Startup Core Strengths
16 years in Silicon Valley
Growth team @ PayPal
Partner @ 500 Startups VC
Lectures at Stanford, Imperial College
Founder of Startup Core Strengths
StartupCoreStrengths.com/subscribe

3. startupcorestrengths.com
SESSION 2
Measure Twice
Cut Once

4. startupcorestrengths.com
Bringing
Your Metrics
To Life

5. startupcorestrengths.com
Here’s The Magic
THE PROCESS
The leverage is in which work you choose to do.
Your goal is to get everyone doing the most impactful
work, making good tradeoffs about how to spend their time
and budgets.
Each person must understand the North Star, and be able
to connect their work to it. (OKRs)
And that should empower them to make good “resource
allocation” decisions for how to move that metric, as the
expert in their domain.
Keep asking “Which is the most important work, and how
is it going?”

6. startupcorestrengths.com
Your Homework:
A conversation with your CEO, Head of Product, Head of
Marketing, Finance + Analytics. Figure out:
1. What’s your North Star Metric?
2. What are your 1-3 biggest drivers of that metric,
company-wide?
3. What’s your “rate-limiting step”?
Fill them into your KPI Sheet, add some historical data & bring
them to our session next week.
Ask each employee: “How does your work each day impact
our North Star?” (Check for alignment & comprehension)
Regularly ask each employee or team: “What’s the most
important work, and how’s it going?”

7. startupcorestrengths.com
Align around a
metrics-driven
process of rapid
experimentation.
Remember,
our goal…

8. startupcorestrengths.com
The Growth
Process

9. startupcorestrengths.com
The Growth
Process

10. H O W I T S T A R T E D H O W I T ’ S G O I N G

11. 10%
20%
70%
Knowledge
Insights from our
perspective on
your biz
The process &
future dividends
W H Y S O M U C H T A L K A B O U T P R O C E S S ?

12. 1. To identify and remove risk & uncertainty
2. To help everyone make good decisions about which work to do.
3. To accelerate the pace of learning.
W H Y T H I S P R O C E S S ?

13. R U N N I N G G R O W T H S P R I N T S

14. TIPS & PITFALLS
1. Focused on the Rate-Limiting Step?
2. Could it have big impact?
3. Is it risky? (It should be).
4. Can you learn the result from your existing data?
5. Will this test teach you something about your
business or your customers?
6. Can you draft a well-formed hypothesis with a
prediction and success metric?
D E C I D I N G W H I C H E X P E R I M E N T S T O R U N

15. Hypothesis:
We believe that… and to verify this, we will… (action) and
measure… (KPI).
We predict… (specific KPI change) and if we are right we
will… (action)
A W E L L - F O R M E D H Y P O T H E S I S

18. C O N T R O L V A R I A N T

22. Hypothesis:
We believe that… and to verify this, we will… (action) and
measure… (KPI).
We predict… (specific KPI change) and if we are right we
will… (action)
“If we move that KPI, is that great for the business right
now?”
”Is this the best, fastest, easiest way we can think to
move that KPI?”
Have everyone make a prediction, on-record.
A W E L L - F O R M E D H Y P O T H E S I S

23. Before:
1. Write your hypothesis
2. Remember screenshots of all variants & control
After:
1. Screenshot results from your analytics tool
2. Write the next steps
3. Organize the doc’s so future employees will be
able to find/review them.
Grab your experiment doc template from Notion
D O C U M E N T Y O U R E X P E R I M E N T S F A S T

24. startupcorestrengths.com
Your Weekly
Growth Meeting

25. 1. Keeps everyone focused on the most important
work (and metrics)
2. Causes self-accountability
3. Drumbeat to force the pace, maintain the process
4. Cause & spread valuable learning
W H Y T H I S
M E E T I N G I S
C R I T I C A L

26. 1. Head of Growth leads meeting, agenda
2. Analyst reviews, explains the numbers
3. Each contributor presents their own work
4. C-level seeks to understand, and add missing context
around prioritization & resources.
For each new experiment, everyone should “place a bet” on the predicted
outcome.
A T T E N D E E S
A N D T H E I R R O L E S
W H O S H O U L D A T T E N D ?

27. “What’s important and how’s it going?”
1. Review a few important numbers (5 min’s)
2. What happened last week? (With the important work)
3. What can we learn?
4. Therefore, what should we do this week?
G R O W T H M E E T I N G A G E N D A

28. 1. North Star Metric
2. Key Drivers affecting it
3. Nuance metrics explain other variations
I M P O R T A N T N U M B E R S

29. C O M M O N M I S T A K E
Endless KPI Debate
Over-thinking / debating, too many numbers, takes up the whole
meeting.
Normal for the first few meetings
By 4th meeting, it’s a short conversation

30. startupcorestrengths.com
Your Homework:
Now: Ask each employee: “How does your work each day impact
our North Star?” (Check for alignment & comprehension)
Quarterly, ask each person & team to identify their Key Driver and
rank the top “levers” they can pull – this drives 80% of their OKRs.
Weekly “growth meetings” to track this work.
Regularly ask each employee or team: “What’s the most
important work, and how’s it going?” (In your 1:1s)

31. startupcorestrengths.com
Researching
solutions
Comparing
solutions
Enjoying
solution
Joy is
Fading
visit visit retarget visit first
action
try use use churn
“Maybe this could help”
“Tell me
more”
“Might
Work”
“Yay, it works!”
“doesn’t
work
anymore”
Thinking:
Doing:
Inferring Actions To Mental State
Acquisition Retention
Hopeful Addicted
Joy
H
abituation
Activation