"We got 1,000 signups!" Cool. How many are active? "We launched on Product Hunt!" Cool. How many converted to paying? "We have 50K monthly visitors!" Cool. What's your retention?
Vanity metrics feel good but mean nothing. After launching 50+ products, here are the metrics that actually tell you if you have product-market fit.
Metric #1: Weekly Active Users (Not Total Signups)
Total signups is vanity. Weekly active usage is truth. If people sign up but don't come back, you don't have a product—you have a landing page.
Example: Thryve launched with 500 signups in week 1. Week 2: 380 returned. Week 3: 340 returned. That's 68% week-2 retention. That's product-market fit.
Benchmark: 40%+ week-2 retention = good. 60%+ = great. Below 20% = problem.
Metric #2: Time to Value (Not Time to Sign Up)
How long does it take a new user to get value from your product? If it's more than 5 minutes, most will churn before they see the benefit.
Example: Curve's "aha moment" is sending their first invoice. We optimized onboarding to get users there in under 3 minutes. Result: 73% of users who send an invoice become paying customers.
Track: Time from signup to "aha moment." Optimize ruthlessly.
Metric #3: Net Revenue Retention (Not MRR Growth)
MRR growth looks at new revenue. NRR looks at existing customer revenue. If you have 100% NRR, existing customers are staying and expanding. That's product-market fit. Below 100%? You're churning faster than you're growing.
Example: Curve's month-6 NRR was 112%. Existing customers were upgrading to higher plans. Even if they stopped acquiring new customers, revenue would grow 12%/month. That's sustainable.
Benchmark: 100%+ NRR = good. 120%+ = exceptional. Below 90% = fix churn before spending on acquisition.
Metric #4: Organic Growth Rate (Not Paid Acquisition)
Anyone can get users with paid ads. Product-market fit shows up in organic growth: word of mouth, referrals, direct traffic.
Example: Thryve got 15,000 users in 6 months. 72% came from student referrals (friends telling friends). That's organic growth. That's product-market fit.
Track: What % of new users come from organic channels (direct, referral, word of mouth)? If it's below 30%, you might have a marketing problem, not a product.
Metric #5: Qualitative: "How Disappointed Would You Be?"
The Sean Ellis test: Ask users "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" Options: Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed. If 40%+ say "very disappointed," you have product-market fit.
Example: Stellify surveyed 100 artists at month 3. 58% said "very disappointed" if the platform shut down. That signal told us to double down on growth.
This is the single best qualitative signal of product-market fit.
Stop Tracking Vanity Metrics
Total signups, social followers, email subscribers, app downloads—these don't tell you if you have a business. Track: Weekly retention, time to value, NRR, organic growth, user sentiment. These tell you if people actually want what you're building.
Need help setting up analytics and tracking the metrics that matter? We set up PostHog, Mixpanel, or Amplitude for every product we launch—so you know what's working from day 1.
