Metrics & KPIs

When a new social app starts to "work," it feels like magic, but often looks like a black box.

The following is an excerpt from the book The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen. Copyright © 2021 by Andrew Chen. Published on Future/ a16z, with permission from Harper Collins, an...

What makes NBA player (and back-to-back MVP) Giannis Antetokounmpo a bona fide superstar? And what would you look for in the numbers to spot the next Giannis? In fact, just as in tech companies, many sports franchises ar...

In 2019, long before the outbreak of COVID-19, many lower gross margin tech companies were not being well-received by the public markets, and an excessive spotlight was cast by many on company gross margins. In the prese...

Every company tracks certain success metrics—commonly accepted criteria for the health of a business. But when it comes to marketplaces, those measurements can often be imprecisely defined or muddled in their interpretat...

0/ There is a dazzling amount of inconsistency in what GTM (go-to-market) metrics are presented at board meetings of early stage B2B (business to business) companies. Here is my hit list of the most important, and why:

Network effects are one of the most important dynamics in software and marketplace businesses. But they’re often spoken of in a binary way: either you have them, or you don’t. In practice, most companies’ network effects...

Power users drive some of the most successful companies -- people who love their product, are highly engaged, and contribute a ton of value to the network. In ecommerce marketplaces it’s power sellers, in ridesharing pla...