The wrong number can quietly run your business
Every product team measures something. Sign-ups, page views, monthly active users, retention, revenue, conversion. Numbers feel objective, so they shape decisions in ways nobody quite signs up for.
If the numbers reflect what actually matters, that’s healthy. If they don’t, the team gets very good at improving the wrong thing — and the product drifts away from where it should be going.
Choosing your metrics is one of the most consequential strategic decisions you make. They quietly direct every other decision after that. Get them right, and the team’s daily work pulls in a coherent direction. Get them wrong, and a lot of effort gets spent making the dashboard look better while the business stays the same.
Vanity metrics vs decision metrics
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