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I get the impression that startups get something like a 10x multiplier in kudos, stock options, chances for a next round, (pick your reward) etc for signing up

I get the impression that startups get something like a 10x multiplier in kudos, stock options, chances for a next round, (pick your reward) etc for signing up a new user than for a repeat visitor logging in. The former means growth; the latter doesn't. Hence it's always easier to find the signup button than the login button. Fucked up incentive structures like this are why we cannot have nice things.

Griffinsauce 5y ago
Having users that want to return is objectively good. We've just taken this to the wrong conclusions. I strongly suspect that this has to do with attribution and shallow "data driven" choices - there is a heavy bias towards things that are easier to measure. Especially in startups with limited resources. Measuring retained users regardless of anonymous/known state is very hard and lossy. So the nearest easy to measure analog that is often picked is logged-in users and we start the fucked up cycle you mention. Similar things happen around all metrics that have to do with retention. We know that a better experience through higher performance and better UX is likely to create happier users that return... but we cannot prove it (easily) so we focus on optimizing other things.
- bregma 5y ago
  The minute something becomes a KPI it is no longer a useful KPI.
- Jenk 5y ago
  I've been in more product meetings that have uttered a phrase like "we will work out what to do with all these users later" than I care to count. It really is a startup goal to sign-up as many users as possible. In most cases it is literally a metric for the next funding round ("Last quarter we had 100k signups!" Is a very attractive soundbite at the round table)
marcosdumay 5y ago
That's how extreme shortsightedness looks like. The number of users you lose by doing that is smaller than the number you gain as long as you don't have enough users (and spends enough on publicity). This is also the one thing that limits the number of users a company will ever have on most cases.
deleted 5y ago
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Griffinsauce 5y ago

Having users that want to return is objectively good. We've just taken this to the wrong conclusions. I strongly suspect that this has to do with attribution and shallow "data driven" choices - there is a heavy bias towards things that are easier to measure. Especially in startups with limited resources. Measuring retained users regardless of anonymous/known state is very hard and lossy. So the nearest easy to measure analog that is often picked is logged-in users and we start the fucked up cycle you mention. Similar things happen around all metrics that have to do with retention. We know that a better experience through higher performance and better UX is likely to create happier users that return... but we cannot prove it (easily) so we focus on optimizing other things.

bregma 5y ago
The minute something becomes a KPI it is no longer a useful KPI.
Jenk 5y ago
I've been in more product meetings that have uttered a phrase like "we will work out what to do with all these users later" than I care to count. It really is a startup goal to sign-up as many users as possible. In most cases it is literally a metric for the next funding round ("Last quarter we had 100k signups!" Is a very attractive soundbite at the round table)

marcosdumay 5y ago

That's how extreme shortsightedness looks like. The number of users you lose by doing that is smaller than the number you gain as long as you don't have enough users (and spends enough on publicity). This is also the one thing that limits the number of users a company will ever have on most cases.

deleted 5y ago

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