Raj Nagappan
1 min readJul 22, 2020

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Hi Jason, the examples that you cite like focusing on revenue too early or focusing DAU without understanding the business model can be vanity metrics if they distract you from what you are supposed to be actually doing. But on the other hand experimenting with these metrics early and listening to the feedback that you get through them can be very valuable learning — if you are willing to actually listen that is! I haven’t thought very much about this aspect of it, but I would guess that whether or not you choose to listen and pivot makes all the difference between a learning metric and a vanity metric. For example, a low DAU count might actually illustrate that your business model is not yet correct. In this case, the low DAU count was the evidence that you needed to disprove your business model, and try again. So I guess there is some value in these metrics if the results are used to drive strategic improvement, rather than counting the metrics for their own sake.

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Raj Nagappan
Raj Nagappan

Written by Raj Nagappan

PhD, software engineer, author. Helping teams to craft better products that customers love. Connect at linkedin.com/in/rajnagappan

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