Article

How to determine your activation metric

Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Intermediate

When people sign up and vanish, the first fork is: did they never hit the moment where the product clicked (activation), or did they hit it and still leave (a deeper product or fit gap)? This piece gives you a concrete way to find that moment for your own product, brainstorm candidate aha actions, then check with data whether they actually cause retention rather than just correlate with it. That test is what tells you which problem you are staring at, so it is a starting point for the diagnosis, not the whole answer.

• A good activation metric is causal for retention, not just correlated, so run regression and then experiments before you trust it.
• Find the specific early action that separates users who stick from users who churn, that is your aha moment made concrete.
• If people activate and still leave, the problem is likely core product or fit, not onboarding, and you fix a different thing.