It is very easy to get into data trap. As a startup, whatever is going up becomes the right metrics and whatever hitting southwards becomes a ‘futuristic ‘metric to track.
Lets talk about some real business – if you are running a coffee shop, what metrics would you track?
The first one that comes to one’s mind is ARPU, i.e. Avg Revenue Per User/Customer.
What’s the second most important metric? Repeatability or Average time spend in the coffee shop? Or something else?
Depending on who you are, you will define the metrics accordingly.
As a darshini hotel (or dhaba), you don’t care so much about repeatability [you want it, but you probably do not track it]. But if you are CCD/Barista, you probably care about that as well as average time spent [Darshinis/Dhabas are transactional in nature, while coffee chains would like to extract more of you as you spend more time].
Metrics are a core parameter of your business outcome and needs to be define accordingly. And in most of the cases, obvious numbers are’t the right numbers to track. You need a much deeper insight into what matters to your business and can sustain in the long run.
As Pluggd.in, we hardly care about Unique visitors/PVs (which is going up anyways) as much as the reader engagement.
Personally speaking, the quality of comments is one big metric that I have and second to that is the reader engagement on-and-off the site. Many entrepreneurs tell us that the quality of comment/feedback that they receive at Pluggd.in is unique and carries more insight than what they receive anywhere else.
As far as metrics is concerned, there are quite a few surprises. 
We haven’t done a good job of building social media channels and in spite of that, 65% reader engagement happens outside the site and to me, that’s a healthy sign. Above all, that’s one metric that matters to us and we thought we will share with you all.
Now it’s your turn – share your startup name and the topmost metric that counts. We would love to know why you aren’t tracking the most obvious ones.
Recommended Read: 10 Facts about Pluggd.in – Who we are, What we do
Ashish Sinha