I'm working at a start-up, and a first PM hire; what KPIs should I own and not own?

Answer

5 Answers

Product Management KPI's

Paresh Vakhariya

Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence) | Formerly PayPal, eBay, Intel, Verizon • 4y

Congratulations to you! There are a lot of ways you can pave the path for KPI's at your company as the first hire The KPI's should be directly based on the business outcome you plan to achieve. Even before that though, I would highly recommend having a solid Product Vision and Strategy in place for your company/product Who are your customers? What is the benefit you are trying to provide them? After that you can use the AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral) framework to u ...Read More

868 Views
Matt Landry

Infoblox SVP Product Management, Networking • 8mo

In a small startup where the CEO is strongly involved, the "PM as CEO of the product" premise doesn't apply. Thus, you shouldn't typically start with revenue as the primary KPI. Instead, focus on early‑stage metrics tied to product‑market fit: are you reaching the right customers, is usage/adoption growing, is retention improving? These are the signals you control more directly as the first PM. Revenue is still the guiding light, but at this stage your goal is setting up the product so revenue c ...Read More

596 Views
Tasha Alfano

Twilio Staff Product Manager, SDKs and Libraries • 4y

Congratulations! I’ll answer your question with a few questions of my own. Purpose: What do you want to drive? What does your organization expect you to own? In Product Management there is a lot of autonomy, but it can also feel tempting to take on everything that needs an owner. Outcomes: If you don’t own a specific KPI, what will happen? In a year, will this KPI matter? What about in 3 years? Does the KPI support the goals of the business in a real way? I’d recommend starting with 2-3 target K ...Read More

609 Views
Virgilia Kaur Pruthi (she/her)

Expedia Group Senior Director of Product, Head of Trust and Safety | Formerly Amazon • 4y

Don't think of it of what you should and should not own. Think about what makes sense to the customers you are focusing on. Then think about where you are in the customer/product lifecycle and product/market fit. What does the overall business care about at this time (e.g. retention vs. acquisition) and start seeing how your product area could contribute back to that overall goal.

988 Views
Sailaja Kalle

Gainsight Director, Product Management • 2y
In a startup, PMs have additional responsibility in ensuring success of the product and customers. My suggestion would be to focus on customer satisfaction, success/retention and support satisfaction.

KPIs like
1. Active users
2. MRR
3. ARR
4. Speed to resolution on Support ticket and its Life cycle KPIs
5. Customer Acquisition cost
These parameters will help give the teams to take data driven decisions crucial for navigating a startup to success
375 Views