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Heard a founder at a coffee shop say 'growth is just a vanity metric without retention' and it stuck with me.
After focusing purely on new sign-ups for months, our churn rate hit 15% last quarter, which made that overheard comment feel like a direct warning about our actual business health.
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williamschmidt1mo ago
Felt that same gut punch when our shiny new user chart hid a sinking ship.
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fisher.reese8d ago
Had a buddy who ran a community app a few years back. He was obsessed with daily active users, like that number was the only thing that mattered. He'd post screenshots of the growth curve every week, all proud. Then one day the users stopped actually doing anything useful on the app. Just logged in, stared at the feed, and left. He didn't notice until his retention numbers started dropping fast. The chart was going up but the money and engagement were going down. He told me he felt like he'd been watching the wrong dashboard the whole time.
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rowan1091mo ago
That "direct warning" feeling is how you know you've been measuring the wrong thing.
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