Article · 15 min read

How to determine your activation metric

Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Intermediate

A three step method (brainstorm milestones, regress against retention, then experiment to prove causation) with worked examples from six companies. The third step is the one most teams skip.

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It answers 5 questions

  1. Everyone says find your aha moment. What is it actually, and how do I find ours?
  2. Our activation rate is 18 percent. Is that terrible, or is that just what it is?
  3. How do I pick one activation metric when the product supports five very different use cases?
  4. Activation has been flat for three quarters despite a lot of experiments. How do I diagnose that as a leader?
  5. How do the best teams run activation as a continuous programme rather than a one-off project?

Read with it

  1. Goes past the single aha metric to a three stage model (setup, aha, habit) with Apollo.io and Appcues case studies, plus the... Product Growth Article · 25 min read How to Measure Onboarding: Advanced Topics in Activation Metrics Aakash Gupta and Ramli John
  2. Benchmarks from 500 plus products: 34 percent average, 36 percent for SaaS. If you have ever wondered whether your number is... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 12 min read What is a good activation rate Lenny Rachitsky and Yuriy Timen
  3. It defines time to value precisely enough to instrument: a start event, a value event, and the gap between them. The insistence... Amplitude Article · 12 min read What Is TTV: A Complete Guide to Time to Value Amplitude
  4. Poyar replaces the sales funnel with a five stage new user journey (discover, start, activate, convert, scale) and attaches... Growth Unhinged Newsletter · 10 min read Your guide to PLG benchmarks Kyle Poyar
  5. Isford's team found Airtable's aha moment and lifted activation about 20 percent by rebuilding onboarding around it, so this is... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · 64 min Mastering onboarding | Lauryn Isford (Head of Growth at Airtable) Lauryn Isford with Lenny Rachitsky
  6. Hila Qu built PLG at GitLab and scaled Acorns, and this is the rare free piece that maps the sales-led funnel against the... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 20 min read Five steps to starting your product-led growth motion Hila Qu
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