📄 Article
✓ Link checked
Free
Beginner
Why we picked it Written by an investor, this is a clean field guide to the exact tricks Indian founders reach for and VCs immediately discount: a viral launch, flash revenue from your own network, a huge waitlist, an enterprise pilot dressed up as a contract. For each fake signal it names the real one to show instead, so you can audit your own deck before an investor does it for you.
Startup Vanity Metrics Investors Should Avoid (And What to Focus on Instead)
From Hustle Fund (Angel Squad) by Brian Nichols 8 min read
- Six specific vanity traps are named with the real metric to replace each: viral views to DAU/WAU and retention, waitlist size to waitlist-to-active conversion, enterprise pilots to pilot-to-paid conversion.
- Flash revenue from founder networks and one-time deals reads as unscalable, so investors want multiple acquisition channels and a healthy LTV to CAC before they believe the growth.
- The single test for real traction: customers who come back, pay, and refer others without being pushed, versus numbers that only move when you spend or launch.