2 ms·

Startup Metrics for Pirates

17 points by pclark 17y ago

quellhorst 17y ago
Audio for this talk at SXSW. http://odeo.com/episodes/23012329 http://odeo.com/episodes/23012329 Video of talk. http://startonomics.com/blog/welcome-to-startonomics-and-startup-metrics-for-pirates-aarrr/ http://startonomics.com/blog/welcome-to-startonomics-and-sta...
pclark 17y ago
The title "Startup Metrics for Pirates" still obscures the actual value of this.
- sachinag 17y ago
  Depends, actually. If you're familiar with Dave's AARRR, referencing "pirate metrics" is enough to have a conversation with many, many people. It doesn't describe the content in a literal fashion, but as a name for something to be discussed, it's fantastic.
skolor 17y ago
I was hoping this would be about startup costs for something like Somalian pirates... As a note, slides are sometimes good without the accompanying speech. I did not feel this was one of those situations. From my experience, the more you get out of just slides, the less overall quality the talk was (as a note, this implies that this talk was relatively good).
- pclark 17y ago
  really? I haven't seen a more packed slide set of stuff it isn't saying "acquire customers" it's saying "acquire customers, and here are a ton of methods" handy.
  - skolor 17y ago
    Right, my problem with this particular set of slides wasn't being too vague, it was that it was a little too busy/crammed with information to really make sense of it. While it looked valuable, it seems more difficult to extract it from the slides than it is worth (at least to me). I'm sure seeing a presentation on it would be well worth the time, however.
wavesplash 17y ago
Take these slides with a grain of salt. Dave's slides are decent for low-touch symmetric high-volume consumer web sites (B2C). Not so great for B2B or asymmetric businesses.
- pclark 17y ago
  Acquisition, Retention, Referral and Revenue apply to almost every business...
  - wavesplash 17y ago
    Very loosely. You have to understand the nature of a business before you start prescribing metrics to watch. A manufacturer wouldn't use these as success metrics. If we just focus on web-tech we're still left with a buch of questions: Is the business B2C, B2B, Symmetric (User pays) or Asymmetric (3rd party pays - e.g. Google users vs. Google advertisers)? For asymmetric businesses or high-dollar ($10k+/sale) enterprise/B2B most of these metrics are good-intentioned but likely to send the business astray. For example: in low-volume/high-dollar B2B and most enterprise, 98% of the time needs to be spent focused on Average Sales Price (ASP) and Average Time to Close (ATC). To minimize ATC and maximize ASP you're trying to listen closely to pain points, determine champions, help win cross department fiefdom battles, get the purchasing department to pay before your company runs out of cash, etc. Dave's suggested metrics start coming into play for symmetric low-dollar subscriptions to thousands and 10s of thousands. These are the types of markets he understands well, and that's aok, but that's not everyone's business and the advise should be taken with a grain of salt.
- davemc500hats 17y ago
  agreed, primarily my talks focus on consumer Internet biz models where you can collect customer reaction to features & UI quickly, in order to make decisions. it applies somewhat, but less well, to long-latency businesses that involve enterprise products / offline sales. and yes, I know the slides violate every rule of good presentation design (color, bullets, etc). it's intentional, and I'm pretty immature. seriously.

17 points by pclark 17y ago

Audio for this talk at SXSW. http://odeo.com/episodes/23012329 http://odeo.com/episodes/23012329 Video of talk. http://startonomics.com/blog/welcome-to-startonomics-and-startup-metrics-for-pirates-aarrr/ http://startonomics.com/blog/welcome-to-startonomics-and-sta...

pclark 17y ago

The title "Startup Metrics for Pirates" still obscures the actual value of this.

sachinag 17y ago
Depends, actually. If you're familiar with Dave's AARRR, referencing "pirate metrics" is enough to have a conversation with many, many people. It doesn't describe the content in a literal fashion, but as a name for something to be discussed, it's fantastic.

skolor 17y ago

I was hoping this would be about startup costs for something like Somalian pirates... As a note, slides are sometimes good without the accompanying speech. I did not feel this was one of those situations. From my experience, the more you get out of just slides, the less overall quality the talk was (as a note, this implies that this talk was relatively good).

pclark 17y ago
really? I haven't seen a more packed slide set of stuff it isn't saying "acquire customers" it's saying "acquire customers, and here are a ton of methods" handy.
- skolor 17y ago
  Right, my problem with this particular set of slides wasn't being too vague, it was that it was a little too busy/crammed with information to really make sense of it. While it looked valuable, it seems more difficult to extract it from the slides than it is worth (at least to me). I'm sure seeing a presentation on it would be well worth the time, however.

wavesplash 17y ago

Take these slides with a grain of salt. Dave's slides are decent for low-touch symmetric high-volume consumer web sites (B2C). Not so great for B2B or asymmetric businesses.

pclark 17y ago
Acquisition, Retention, Referral and Revenue apply to almost every business...
- wavesplash 17y ago
  Very loosely. You have to understand the nature of a business before you start prescribing metrics to watch. A manufacturer wouldn't use these as success metrics. If we just focus on web-tech we're still left with a buch of questions: Is the business B2C, B2B, Symmetric (User pays) or Asymmetric (3rd party pays - e.g. Google users vs. Google advertisers)? For asymmetric businesses or high-dollar ($10k+/sale) enterprise/B2B most of these metrics are good-intentioned but likely to send the business astray. For example: in low-volume/high-dollar B2B and most enterprise, 98% of the time needs to be spent focused on Average Sales Price (ASP) and Average Time to Close (ATC). To minimize ATC and maximize ASP you're trying to listen closely to pain points, determine champions, help win cross department fiefdom battles, get the purchasing department to pay before your company runs out of cash, etc. Dave's suggested metrics start coming into play for symmetric low-dollar subscriptions to thousands and 10s of thousands. These are the types of markets he understands well, and that's aok, but that's not everyone's business and the advise should be taken with a grain of salt.
davemc500hats 17y ago
agreed, primarily my talks focus on consumer Internet biz models where you can collect customer reaction to features & UI quickly, in order to make decisions. it applies somewhat, but less well, to long-latency businesses that involve enterprise products / offline sales. and yes, I know the slides violate every rule of good presentation design (color, bullets, etc). it's intentional, and I'm pretty immature. seriously.