Framework library · Innovation and product
North star metric
A north star metric is the single number that best reflects the value customers get from a product, chosen so that revenue should follow when it rises. On its own it moves too slowly to steer by, so it is broken into a few input metrics that teams can change week to week, often covering breadth, depth, frequency and efficiency. Counter-metrics stop a team hitting the number in ways that harm customers or the business.
Use it when
- Teams are optimising different numbers (sign-ups, revenue, usage) and pulling the product in different directions.
- Revenue is a lagging and noisy guide, and you need a measure that moves earlier and that teams can influence.
- You are setting goals for a product and want them to connect the work of each team to the value customers get.
Avoid it when
- The business has several products with unrelated customers. Each needs its own metric; one number for all will fit none.
- The product is so early that you do not yet know what value customers get from it. Find that first with jobs to be done or a Lean Startup register.
- You need a full set of business objectives. A north star sits inside OKRs or a balanced scorecard; it does not replace them.
How to run it
Describe the value customers get
In one or two sentences: what changes for the customer when the product works. The metric must count that moment, not activity around it.
Choose a metric that leads revenue
It should rise before revenue does and be something the product team can influence. Check against history that it moved before revenue did.
Break it into inputs
Three to five measures teams can change within weeks. Breadth (how many customers), depth (how much each uses), frequency (how often) and efficiency (how quickly they get value) are a useful starting set.
Set counter-metrics
For each way the north star could be gamed or bought at the customer's expense, name a measure that must not get worse.
Record where it is now and set a target
Current value, the target and the date. Give each input an owner.
Review it every week
Look at the inputs first; they explain why the north star moved. Revisit the choice of metric once a year.
Work through it
Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.
What you type stays in this browser, so you can close the page and come back to it. It is not sent to Blue Prysm or anyone else, and the exports are made here, on your device. Privacy policy.
Mistakes to avoid
- Choosing a vanity metric, such as registered users or devices activated, that rises whether or not customers get value.
- Choosing revenue itself. It is an outcome of the north star, and too slow and broad to guide product work.
- Having no counter-metrics, so teams hit the number by discounting, spamming or adding low-value usage.
- Changing the metric every quarter. Teams cannot learn what moves a number that keeps being replaced.
Where it comes from
No single originator: the term is in wide use among product and growth teams, and no first publication can be identified with confidence. The version used here, a metric broken into input metrics such as breadth, depth, frequency and efficiency, follows Amplitude's North Star Playbook, co-written by John Cutler. Source.
Use it with
Further reading
Work through it with us
The frameworks here are free to use as they stand. If you would rather work through the question behind this one with us, these are the ways an engagement starts.