The document discusses finding and leveraging a North Star Metric, which is a single metric or set of metrics that a company uses to focus on sustainable growth. It recommends that the North Star Metric be easy to understand, reflect customer value, lead to correlated growth, and be measurable. It also discusses frameworks for identifying potential North Star Metrics, such as looking at customer and business experiences, as well as reconciling brand and customer experiences to identify a metric. Finally, it notes that the North Star Metric should start with retention and the back of the funnel in mind.

1. The Power of a North Star Metric
Modified Hoshin
Bowtie Funnel
Radar Graph
Business Impact
Analysis
Prioritization Matrix
Convergence /
Divergence
Customer Journey
Mapping
Maslow’s Triangle
Empathy Mapping

2. Choosing a North Star Metric
For Sustainable Growth The S Curve of Business Growth
The North Star Metric is a single metric, or
set of motion metrics, that a company
uses to focus at each stage on the S Curve
of Growth.
The North Star Metric needs to:
● Be easy to understand at every level
● Reflect that "a-ha" moment of
customer value
● Lead to correlated growth of your
North Star Goal.
● Be measurable and progressive &
tied to Lifetime Value
Strategic
Inflection
Point
Inflection Points
Vary
If You’re Growing
You’re Shifting
Sustain Forward
Momentum
Scale
Growth
Start

3. Leveraging Behavioral Frameworks to Find Your
North Star Metric.
Business Experience
Framework
(Internal Vesting)
Customer Experience
Framework
(Path-to-Purchase)
Business Model
Business Story
Experience
Channels
Products and Services
The 3 Ps
Emotional Triggers
(Past, Present, Future)
Logical Triggers
(Past, Present, Future)
Emotional Trigger
(Past, Present, Future)
Feelings Feelings
Logical Decision Making

4. The Dangers of Focusing on One Universal
North Star Metric.
“The search for one key metric for a complex ecosystem like
Pinterest over-simplifies how the ecosystem works and prevents
anyone from focusing on understanding the different elements
of that ecosystem. You want the opposite to be true. You want
everyone focused on understanding how different elements
work together in this ecosystem. The one key metric can make
you think that is not important.
- Casey Winters, Former Head of Growth at Pinterest

5. The Foundation for the North Star Metric.
Data visualization which is done with LTV
in mind keeps your business pointed in
the right direction, you can steer your
team towards success rather than down a
path of obsolescence.
Having a similar means of visualizing
data around your North Star Metric
makes it possible for your entire company
to see how each project, process, or tweak
they make impacts the greater goal.
DATA VISUALIZATION DASHBOARD

6. In order to get out ahead, Spotify
would need to also monitor other
input metrics, which could be
tweaked and analyzed to predict the
impact it would have on their North
Star Metric — the time spent on their
platform.
Monitoring Inputs and Outputs From a North Star.
HOW SPOTIFY COULD USE INPUT & OUTPUT METRICS TO
INFLUENCE THEIR NORTH STAR METRIC
INPUT METRICS
OUTPUT METRICS
Increase Time
Spent per
Session
Bring Users Back
More Often
Time Spent
Listening to
Music
OUTPUT METRICS
INPUT METRICS

7. By working backward from the single
North Star Metric, and analyzing or
democratizing the input metrics that
drive the output metric, their entire
company is able to understand the
why, how, and what behind their
platform.
Monitoring Inputs and Outputs From a North Star.
HOW SPOTIFY COULD USE INPUT & OUTPUT METRICS TO
INFLUENCE THEIR NORTH STAR METRIC
INPUT METRICS
OUTPUT METRICS
New Artist
Notifications
Time Spent
Listening to
Music
Recomm-
endations
Create
Playlists
Discover
New Songs
Bring More
Users Back
More Often
Bring More
Users Back
More Often
OUTPUT METRICS
INPUT METRICS

8. Inserting more ads into the news feed
might increase revenues short term.
The problem arises when another
output metric is considered —
engagement.
Understanding these tradeoff
metrics, or the motion of shifting each
metric is non-negotiable. You must
choose the right North Star Metric to
know the path you’re taking.
The Impact of Trade-Off Metrics on a North Star.
OUTPUT METRICS
INPUT METRICS
Insert More Ad
Spots Into
Newsfeed
THE IMPACT OF TRADE-OFF METRICS ON YOUR
NORTH STAR METRIC
Increase
Decrease
Engagement
Ad Revenue
Per User

9. Common Starting Points for Finding a North Star.
Revenue
The amount of money
being generated.
Customer Growth
The number of paying users.
Consumption Growth
The intensity of usage of the
product
User Experience
How enjoyable and easy-to-use
customers find the product
experience overall.
The efficiency at which you
spend versus make money.
The number of users who are
simply active in a product.
Growth Efficiency
Engagement Growth

10. Predicting Shifts in the North Star Metric Based on
Leading Indicators.
LEADING LAGGING
Input 1
Input 2
Input 3
Input 4
● Expresses Value
● Represents vision
& strategy
● It’s a leading
indicator
● Isn’t a vanity
metric
● Is actionable
● Can be easily
understood
● Is quantifiable
“The Work”
Input Metrics
North Star
Metrics
Mid/Long-Term
Business Results
& Customer
Value

11. Predicting Shifts in the North Star Metric Based on
Leading Indicators.
● New User Activation
● Resurrection Campaign
● Subscription Trials
● Recommendations
● Personalized Capabilities
● Discount Coupons
● Reminders
● Flash Sale
● Notifications
● Automated
Replacements
● Customer Chat
● Warehouse & Logistics
# New &
Resurrected
Users
# of Items
Per Order
# Orders
Per Month
Per User
% Items
Delivered
On Time
Breadth
Depth
Frequency
Efficiency
North Star
Monthly
Boxes
Delivered on
Time

12. Hypothetical North Star Metrics Across a Variety of
Business Models.
Time spent actively engaging with feed
# of subscribers watching > X hours of
content per month
Purchases per Prime subscriber
Purchases per customer visit/session
Avg records created per account
# engaged cloud subscribers
Attention
Transaction
Productivity

13. Four Key Elements of Quality Business Metrics.
Showcase the direction you’re
moving across time periods, groups
of users or against competitors.
Analyze movement over time.
Mind-map metrics from input to
output
Understand behavioral shifts via
motivational triggers.
Comparative Understandable
A Rate or Ratio Actionable & Behavior
Changing

14. Using comparative metrics speaks
clearly to our definition of “movement
towards business goals.”
The savvier you get at speaking in
comparative metrics rather than
absolute metrics, the more growth-
oriented and minded you’ll become.
You’ll be able to tell a better story
with your data to your team.
Understanding Comparative Metrics.
Comparative

15. At RocketSource, we’re advocates for and
experts at simplifying the complex. When it
comes to which metrics you should be
tracking in your business, we believe that
they should err on the side of understandable
rather than overly complicated.
If people can’t remember the numbers you're
focused on and discuss them effectively, it
becomes much harder to turn a change in
the data into a change in the culture.
Democratizing Data With Understandable
Analytics.
Understandable

16. Ratios and rates (unlike absolute
numbers) give you a more realistic
health check for your business. As a
result, they’re easier to act upon.
Having visuals and metrics to compare
and contrast what’s happening in
specific areas of your business or
customer’s journey will help you
identify where you can improve and
where you need to focus your
resources.
Leveraging Rates + Ratios.
Do you (your employees) have a clear
idea on what they should be working
towards on a weekly basis?
Do you have a clear idea on a weekly
basis as to how to measure your work?
Do you have a clear idea on a weekly
basis as to how your work aligns with a
common strategic goal?
Do you have a clear idea on a weekly
basis as to how your work aligns with a
common metric to achieve a strategic
goal?

17. The metrics you track must inspire some
sort of change in behavior if they are to
make a difference.
Data and analytics are the raw
ingredients of KPIs and metrics. Surges in
data volume, velocity, variety, and
ongoing algorithmic innovation will
require organizations to continually
revisit the fundamental elements and
attributes of their KPIs and metrics.
Actionable + Behavior Changing Metrics.
Actionable & Behavior
Changing

18. The best data is qualitative that can be quantified. Qualitative data showcases
behaviors and motivations. It’s more emotional and harder to put a number to.
Qualitative data, however, is anything you can track numerically. It’s used more
often to understand what’s happening and visualize broader trends.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Business Metrics.
Rich Data
Personal
Directional
Information
Purchase Triggers
Easier to Discover,
Analyze, etc.
Expensive
Difficult to Interpret
Difficult to Make
Comparisons
Great Hires Costly &
Difficult to Recruit
Less Costly
Easier to Validate
Easier to Collect
Statistically Robust
Data is Limited/Missing
Lacks Depth & Can Be
Misunderstood
Needs > Sample Size
Different to Sheer
Size of Data
QUALITATIVE QUANTITATIVE

19. By starting with retention first, and forming your North Star Metric around the
back of the funnel, you’ll have more actionable metrics fueling your decision-
making.
Vanity vs. Actionable Metrics.
Path-to-Purchase Path-to-Loyalty
Sustainable Growth & Retention Formula
Acquisition Conversion Retention

20. Both types of metrics have their place in
business growth. When considering your
North Star Metric, it’s important to lean
more towards a leading indicator so you
can get out ahead of any problems
before they arise.
It’s required you understand the macro
headwinds and tailwinds if you want to
get really good at building models
around the right metrics.
Actionable + Behavior
Changing Metrics.
Source: Amplitude
Household Government Corporation
Foreign
Wage
Yield
Consumption
Microeconomics Supply & Demand Graph
Based on the study of supply and demand at the
personal and corporate level.
Commodity
Market
Financial
Market
Workplace
Market
P
QUANTITY (Q)
PRICE
(P)
Q

21. Know Thy Customer’s Pain & Your Ability to Solve It.
Problem vs. Market
Model to Market Fit
Ability to Execute,
Grow & Scale
Lifecycle vs. Competitive
Alternatives
Business Discretionary
Spending
Extrinsic Layers of
Economy vs. Intrinsic
Layers of StoryVesting
Change in Customer
Sentiment
Competitive Landscape
Inflation vs. Deflation
Consumer Discretionary
Spending
Macroeconomics
Headwinds & Tailwinds
X-Factors
Brand Experience
Framework
Customer Experience
Framework
(Internal Vesting) Path-to-Purchase

22. Before you can identify a solution to a
problem, and a North Star Metric to
monitor your progression towards that
solution, you must understand your
customer’s perspective.
This starts by looking at the center of the
circle and moving outwards. Customer
Experience isn’t defined by one single
interaction with a brand. It’s the sum of
many interactions, behaviors, and
decision-making elements.
Understanding Your Customer Through
StoryVesting.

23. This partnership made sense across all
layers of StoryVesting. Both brands
understood customer sentiment, the
competitive landscape and consumer
discretionary spending.
The macro tailwinds with the vaccine
rollouts meant that more daters felt
comfortable getting back outside. Overall,
the combined brand functionalities left their
daters with a seamless experience that
honored their emotional and logical needs.
Understanding Your Customer Through
StoryVesting.
Lyft Sales up
Year-over-year
“Although the world has been changed
forever, people are yearning for human
connection, cities to reopen, and the
moment when we can all socialize again.
We're excited to partner with a company
that, like Lyft believes in elevating
experiences and bringing people
together.”
Monthly Active
Users on Tinder
Dating Apps Revenue Explodes in
2021

24. Customer experiences don’t happen
without a strong team developing them out
behind-the-scenes. It takes multiple layers
and nuances internally to roll out a
beautiful experience externally.
● Problem vs. Market
● Model vs. Market Fit (vs. Competition)
● The 3 Ps
● Lifecycle vs. Competitive Alternatives
● Business Discretionary Spending
● Extrinsic Layers of Economy vs. Intrinsic
Layers of StoryVesting
Understanding Your Organization
Through a StoryVested Lens.

25. ● The Ritz-Carlton is well-known for its
customer experience, but that
experience is driven internally by the
people across all layers of the
organization.
● In offering employee discretionary
spending, and allocating it to the end
experience, employees, or the people of
the business, are able to streamline
their processes and offer a more
personalized service.
Understanding Your Organization
Through a StoryVested Lens.
54
Projects
11,009
Rooms
Pre-Planning
9 Projects
Planning
10 Projects
Construction
30 Projects
Pre-Opening
5 Projects
2021
5 Projects
2022
20 Projects
2023
9 Projects
2024
20 Projects

26. If you’re making decisions rooted in the StoryVesting framework, then you must
start at the back of the funnel, which is left more open for questioning.
A Quality North Star Starts With Retention in Mind.
Since we already know so
much via Crunchbase,
SimilarWeb, Moat, HotJar, etc.
this part of the funnel
requires less focus and
analysis. The data is already
done for us.
Rooted in StoryVesting & paid
or revenue generating
“freemium.” Different cohort
uses freemium vs. paid
positioning. Content,
marketing, designs & tactics all
must be inputs directly
associated with this question &
North Star tied to growth.
Otherwise, this gets messy.
Don’t Commit The
Fallacy
Why Do They Stay?
Path-to-Purchase Path-to-Loyalty
Sustainable Growth & Retention Formula

27. When building the North Star metric
assumptive model, you start at the end of
the funnel and make decisions in
conjunction with top of funnel analytics.
Your North Star Metric should be:
● Measureable
● Correlated with Growth
● Simple to Understand
● Objective + Controlled
● Constantly Evolving Along the S Curve
of Growth
Reconciling Data to Find Your North
Star Metric.
Understanding what’s
happening with the
experience between the path-
to-purchase and path-to-
loyalty can help lower attrition
and increase LTV.
Path-to-Purchase Path-to-Loyalty
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS MAPPING ACROSS THE BOWTIE

28. Every framework, every exercise is
done to help us know how and
where to align novel concepts,
ideas and vision with the current
market momentum and market
share potentiality.
Leveraging Bolt-On & Stand Alone Exercises to Find
Your North Star Metric.

29. Every framework, every exercise is
done to help us know how and
where to align novel concepts,
ideas and vision with the current
market momentum and market
share potentiality.
Reconciling Brand & Customer Experiences.

30. Reconciling Brand & Customer Experiences.
• What questions to ask?
• What to poll?
• Data collection methods
• Deployment method
• Sample size
• Identify emotional triggers
• Identify logical triggers
• Qualitative data looping
• Empathy mapping
• Sentiment mining
• Price, product, relevancy
• Need vs. Want
• Time vs. Effort
• Value vs. Cost
• Identify emotional triggers
• Identify logical triggers
• Qualitative data looping
• Empathy mapping
• Sentiment mining
• Ask more questions (merge 1-3)
• Current vs. Future (GAP Analysis)
• Review org chart
• Tech Stack Audit
• Leadership peer review
• Dept alignment audit
• Produce radar graphs
• Audit processes
• Reinforcement biases
• Expectations match
• Experience rating
• How does it make you feel?
1. The Why 1. The Why
2. Logical Reasoning
3. Emotive/Logical
Reinforcement
2. Business Model
3. The 3P’s
Start here
S CURVE
MATURITY
S CURVE
MATURITY
PAST
PRESENT
RECONCILIATION

31. Reconciling Brand & Customer Experiences.
• Merge what, where, when, why
• Innovation gaps
• Acquisition & retention cohort analysis
• Tech Stack Audit
• Price to experience parity
• Customer insights mapping (in reverse)
• Ask yes or no questions
• Offering comprehension
• Usability scoring
• Right product/place at the right time?
• Ask more questions (merge 1-4)
• Audit channels
• Convergence/divergence analysis
• Fishbone analysis
• Cohort location analysis (where, why)
• Sentiment mining
• Customer Insights mapping
• Usability testing
• North star metrics (ah ha! moment)
• CSAT & ESAT
• CES & EES
• Identify patterns
• Gather sensory feedback (touch, visual,
auditory, smell, taste, feel)
• Buyers remorse?
• Hope vs. Fulfilled experience
• Gather emotional feedback (excitement, fear,
hope, confidence, trust)
4. Products & Services 4. Comparative Logic
5. Channels 5. What, Where, When,
Why & How
6. Experience
6. Experience
FUTURE
KPI’s METRICS &
MEASUREMENT
• Merge what, where, when, why
• Innovation gaps
• Acquisition & retention cohort analysis
• Tech Stack Audit
• Price to experience parity
• Customer insights mapping (in reverse)

32. Understanding what’s out of
alignment will help you better
assess what needs to shift in your
business, and which metrics you
need to be focused on in order to
drive those shifts and monitor their
success.
Assessing Alignment of Brand &
Customer Experience.
No Man’s Land Excellent Brand Euphoria
Identify & remove roadblocks,
take actionable steps to achieve
alignment.
Limited Brand Equity
Disconnected Experiences
Customer First
High Brand Equity
Connected Experiences
Customer First
Deep Cognitive Association
Brand & Immersive Experiences
Customer Centric

33. We can start to identify gaps in
alignment by differentiating two
sets of circles using same colors as
the StoryVesting concentric circles
to help separate the two sets of
data.
Our goal is to move these out of
No Man’s Land and into alignment
by bringing them as close together
as possible. It’s only when more
gaps are filled and more sets of
data are aligned that you can
grow revenue.
The Buckyball Approach to Finding a North Star.
Problem Analysis EX 2 to CX6 = competitive experience issue.
Problem Analysis EX 3 to CX 5 = comparative review.
Figure 1
Figure 2

34. Aligning Your Business Model & the Customer Journey
to Find Your North Star.
Together, the North Star Metric
must continuously be aligned with
your Bow Tie Funnel’s open circle
that states why someone stays
with your business.
It must be measurable, highly
correlated with growth and
success, simple to understand,
objective but within your control,
and constantly evolving at your
company’s S Curve inflection
points.

35. Revenue Acceleration Via a North Star Metric.
Many companies live in legacy-
style thinking. They’re conversion-
focused, looking exclusively at
metrics like Cost Per Lead (CPL),
Cost of Acquisition (CAC), and
Return on Investment (ROI).
While there’s room for that type of
analysis and those metrics
certainly have their spot in
revenue acceleration, we like to
look closer at intelligent
operations instead.
CPL
CAC
ROAS/ROI
CX
LTV
LTV : [CX]
Retention
Focused
Conversion
Focused
PERSONALIZATION MATURITY
REVENUE
GROWTH
Legacy Thinking: Tools
and team structure can
block revenue
acceleration and
successful Revenue Ops
Intelligent Ops: Modern
tools, bleeding edge
thinking, and relevant org-
structure can accelerate
revenue and growth

36. Metrics Which Reinforce Value Proposition & Revenue
Acceleration.
Sales Cycle
Monitor how changes impact
your sales cycle as new
strategies are implemented
and new goals are determined.
The amount of time it
takes to close a deal.
Increase/Decrease of Sales
Cycle
Lifetime Value (LTV)
How much you can make
from your customers over
their lifetime of buying
from your business.
LTV:CAC Content Engagement
How someone behaves with
your business, your content,
and/or your deliverable.
How much you’re
bringing in per employee.
The LTV ratio to CAC helps
determine if you’re allocating the
right amount of resources
effectively to drive long-term
retention.
Revenue per Employee or
Contractor

37. More Metrics Which Reinforce Value Proposition &
Revenue Acceleration.
Month-over-Month
Revenue per Employee
How well your value
proposition, strategy and
operations are still aligned.
How well you’re staying in
momentum, and if the model
is still viable based on your
motion.
Repeat revenue expansion per
client shows how much revenue
we’ve seen grow per client on a
monthly basis.
Back revenue expansion up
against CAC to better
understand your growth
levers.
Profit per Employee Month-over-Month Profit
per Employee
Repeat Revenue
Expansion Per Client
Revenue Expansion vs.
Cost of Acquisition
The profitability of each
employee.

38. Revenue Acceleration Via a North Star Metric.
There will be times when your
company starts to transition into a
new constellation of metrics. Of
course, as that shift happens, your
North Star metric shifts too.
A shift isn’t a bad thing. It brings
on new scaling opportunities, and
with those new opportunities, you
must make changes to the way in
which you forecast and deliver
accurate results.
Volume Velocity Variety Veracity
Data at Rest Data in Motion Data in Many Forms Data in Doubt
As your organization starts to
transition out of an inflection
point, your North Star Metric
and input metrics will shift.
Strategic Inflection Point
Growth
Scale
Start

39. Revenue Acceleration Via a North Star Metric.
Every time we help our clients
optimize their input metrics, North
Star Metrics and North Star Goals,
we do so through the lens of
StoryVesting and the other
frameworks.
Ultimately, when you get your
North Star Metric, it’s going to stay
with you until your next
switchback, pivot or place along
your S Curve of Growth.
Empathy Mapping
Maslow’s Triangle Modified Hoshin Bowtie Funnel Radar Graph
Customer Journey
Mapping
Convergence /
Divergence
Prioritization
Matrix
Business Impact
Analysis
StoryVesting Framework

40. Discover the Power of a
Proper North Star Metric.
Learn more at
RocketSource.co/Blog/North-Star-Metric