Retention

Also called Retention Rate and Cohort Retention

How many of your users or customers keep coming back over time. Usually read as a cohort curve: of everyone who started in a given month, what share is still active weeks and months later.

Why it matters

Retention is the truest single test of whether people actually value what you built. A curve that flattens instead of falling to zero is the clearest evidence of product-market fit, and the foundation any real growth sits on.

Worth your time

The Startup Curve and Retention Reforge · article Balfour makes the case that a flattening retention curve, not a revenue number, is the honest signal of fit, with the frameworks to read your own.

Related terms

Churn Product-Market Fit North Star Metric
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