Tool

Cohort analysis: how to read the chart, choose a platform, and turn retention into growth

Mixpanel Freemium Intermediate

Once you have a hunch about who your best customers are, you need to check it against behaviour, and Mixpanel is a real analytics tool with a free tier that early startups can actually use. This guide shows how to group users into cohorts by what they did and then watch which cohorts stick around, so the segment that retains best surfaces on its own. That retaining cluster is usually where your ideal customer profile is hiding.

  • A cohort is just a group of users who share a trait or a behaviour, and cohort analysis tracks how each group behaves over time.
  • Retention curves by cohort show which type of customer actually sticks, which is stronger evidence than any single vanity metric.
  • Mixpanel's free tier makes this reachable for a small team building outside the big startup hubs, no data warehouse required.
Open on mixpanel.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I use the customers I already have to sharpen my ideal customer profile instead of guessing?

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