Adora Cheung - How to Set KPIs and Goals

YC Partner Adora Cheung covers the importance of defining and tracking KPIs to understand how effectively your startup is reaching your goals.

Timestamps
00:00 What is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?
00:39 Why do KPIs matter?
1:33 What are the right KPIs to set?
1:46 Setting your primary metric
2:22 What are the characteristics of a good primary metric?
5:32 The two best primary metrics
6:50 When should you consider active users as a metric?
9:20 KPIs for bio and hardtech businesses
11:15 Secondary metrics
12:56 The best KPI for an unlaunched company
13:55 Setting metric-based goals
15:20 How fast should I grow?
17:15 What does success look like for you?
17:40 Guidelines for defining a goal
19:45 How to pick a goal
20:44 Tracking Progress
21:18 Leveraging your primary goal
22:27 Using the Startup School weekly update

[chans]

I started realizing the true value of these videos only after I started taking notes

[chlq]

"I urge you to just get paid." hahahah! Great tip.

[Sondre]

This was a great video! Loved especially the stuff sourced from PG, really managed to get the essence of the knowledge there

[rajinderyadav]

Adora did a great job on this talk, found this very useful even though I am still in the idea / user acquisition phase.

[SUPERRITA]

Amazon was intentionally not trying to make any money at the early stage so that they can more market share. Obviously it worked well for them. I think whether CAC should be less than your revenue depends on your industry.

[alpineai]

This along with Michael's article "The Scientific Method for Startups" should be required for university curriculum.

[PreeMarket]

Great breakdown, thanks for the video!

[frankhopper]

Is there a link to the consumer metrics lecture Auda mentions at 12:26?

[andrewkiminhwan]

What are the most common patterns of obstacles for hitting goals?
other than say not trying hard enough, not solving a big enough problem, not knowing enough about your users, poorly design checkout, etc.

[MrRehor]

Thank you so much for sharing this video. It kept my interest and It is very clear. Awesome!!!

[lijupillai]

What are some of the best tools out there to track these KPIs, other than say Google Sheets ?

[YourAliasIsNotAvailable]

Yay, there is this person whos company closed due to the lack of ability to maintain profitability, teaching me how to name factors to ensure my profitability. So exciting.

I like how all this people talk about key indicators as they could grow infinite.
You know, by no possibilty you are able to get more than 100% market share and even this is theoratically impossible.
There isn't such a thing like infinite growth, so at one point there is no meaning in pushing your predicted numbers.

[h.t.]

Then again after looking at Wiki and the closing of start ups and Database slip and slide, its like Snoop said, "Every man, now add woman, got their hustle".

[brittnayjohnson]

#BUS25F42 This question makes so much sense.

[qbakuba]

So let me get this straight: If company doesnt grow at least 22% per month ycombinator is not interested?

[andychen]

The 4 points about primary metrics are really confused by her explanation

[StephaneArcher]

Why do you need Goals? What about just do your best to push up your KPIs? 🤔

[silasadedoyin]

This video appears to be having some issues.

[novapowell]

Is this a person who burned $38 million and failed with Homejoy?

[h.t.]

Billion dollar valuation as a matter of fact comment, 10% weekly growth as a bad sign you will not reach that valuation is a staggering business statement.

Y Combinator with interest as seed funders totaling around $600 Billion is a sign of astute relevant business insight.