* Vanity vs. Actionable Metrics * Pirate Metrics, AARRRR!

1. Growth Hacking for Startups
Ciprian Borodescu, CEO Appticles.com

2. Play by their rules and you won’t stand a chance

4. 1M
2M
12M
The first growth hack in history
July, 1996 November, 1997July, 1997

5. AirBnB & Craiglist

6. Fake landing pages

7. We have millions of page views
Our plugin/theme has been downloaded 700,000 times
We’ve reached 100,000 likes
10,000 users subscribed to our mailing list

8. vanity metrics
actionable metrics

9. • AUDITABLE
• ACTIONABLE
• ACCESSIBLE
Metrics should be

10. We have 10,000 subscribers on our mailing list
45% of our subscribers have never opened an e-mail
vs.

11. Pirate Metrics
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version

12. • Direct
• Social
• E-mail
• SEO
• Affiliates

13. • Happy 1st visit
• Signed up
• Subscribed to newsletter

14. • 3+ visits in the first weeks
• Signed up user that returns
• Subscriber that frequently opens e-mails

15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100% 78% 74% 72% 69% 68% 65% 63% 61%
% Active in months after signup

16. What would be the impact on the retention
rate if we introduce a new feature:
?

17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
JAN 100% 78% 74% 72% 69% 68% 65% 63% 61%
FEB 100% 85% 81% 77% 75% 74% 71% 67%
MAR 100% 87% 82% 79% 78% 75% 73%
APR 100% 90% 85% 81% 77% 75%
MAY 100% 92% 87% 85% 80%
JUN 100% 94% 85% 83%
JUL 100% 95% 84%
AUG 100% 93%
% Active in months after signup
↓Signups
78% of the users that signed up
in March were still active in their
5th month (July)
Cohort Analysis

18. What would be the impact on the retention
rate if we introduce a new feature:
?
none

19. • Purchased your product
• Paid for your premium service
• Clicked on Ads

20. • Share
• Tweet
• Forward e-mail

21. Pirate metrics dashboard
Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15 Jun-15 Jul-15 Aug-15 Sep-15 Oct-15 Nov-15 Dec-15
Acquisition
Unique visitors 1,000 985 907 1,025 1,500
Activation
New signups 75 73 65 70 85
Visitors - Signups
Conversion (%) 7.50% 7.41% 7.17% 6.83% 5.67%
Revenue
Paying users 3 5 1 6 9
% 4.00% 6.85% 1.54% 8.57% 10.59%
Referrals
E-mail 0 0 1 0 1
Facebook 3 0 0 2 3
Twitter 1 2 0 2 5

22. Tools

23. • A/B test everything
• Channels with high volume, high conversion & low cost
• Focus on max. 2 KPIs at once
Best Practice

24. Resources
https://growthhackers.com/

26. Thank you!
ciprian@appticles.com
Questions?
@cborodescu