Question 1

What is a north star metric, and how do you choose one?

Accepted Answer

A single measure a whole organisation aligns around — chosen because it captures **the value customers actually receive**, so that improving it necessarily means the business is working.

**The problem it addresses.** Teams optimise what they are measured on. When each team has its own metric, they optimise in conflicting directions: marketing maximises signups, product maximises engagement, sales maximises contracts, and nobody is accountable for whether any of it produces value. A north star is an attempt to point everyone at the same thing.

**What makes a good one:**

**It represents delivered value**, not activity. "Nights booked" rather than "searches performed"; "messages sent between matched users" rather than "profiles created".

**It leads revenue rather than following it.** Revenue itself is a poor north star because it is lagging — by the time it moves, the decisions that caused it are months old.

**It is influenceable** by the teams held to it.

**It is a rate or a count of a repeated action**, so it reflects ongoing value rather than a one-off.

**It is hard to game without actually improving the business**, which is the real test.

**The classic failure modes:**

**Choosing a vanity metric.** Registered users only ever increases, so it cannot signal a problem.

**Choosing something gameable.** Any metric can be raised by degrading the experience — time on site rises when navigation is confusing, and page views rise when content is split across pages.

**Goodhart's law**, which is the underlying principle: **when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.** This is not avoidable, only managed.

**Having several**, which defeats the purpose entirely.

**What sits alongside it.** A north star needs **counter-metrics** or guardrails — measures that would catch the damage caused by optimising it too hard. Growth alongside churn; engagement alongside complaints; conversion rate alongside refunds.

**Input metrics** break it into the components each team can actually move, which is what makes it operational rather than decorative.

**It should change** as the business matures, and holding one too long is its own failure.

Question 2

What is a vanity metric?

Accepted Answer

A vanity metric is a number that looks impressive and does not inform a decision. The term was popularised by Eric Ries in the lean startup literature, and the distinction he drew is between metrics

Question 3

What is net promoter score, and is it useful?

Accepted Answer

A single-question metric — how likely are you to recommend this, on a scale of 0 to 10 — reduced to a score by subtracting the percentage of detractors (0–6) from the percentage of promoters (9–10),

Question 4

Are trade shows and events worth it?

Accepted Answer

Sometimes, and rarely for the reason budgets are justified — the value is almost never in leads scanned at the stand, and almost always in conversations that would not otherwise happen. Where the

Question 5

What is incrementality testing?

Accepted Answer

Measuring whether marketing actually caused additional sales — as opposed to taking credit for sales that would have happened anyway, which is what most attribution does. The problem it solves.

Question 6

What is a customer journey map and is it actually useful?

Accepted Answer

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the stages a person goes through when interacting with a business — what they do, think and feel at each point, across every channel. What a map

Question 7

What is lead scoring, and does it actually work?

Accepted Answer

Assigning numerical values to leads based on who they are and what they have done, so sales attention goes to those most likely to buy. It works when built on evidence and fails — commonly — when

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