The Right Way To Set Goals for Growth

The Right Way To Set Goals for Growth

Setting goals is a crucial part of achieving growth in any business or product. However, it's important to approach goal-setting in the right way to ensure that you are focusing on the right metrics and driving meaningful progress. One of the best approaches to goal-setting is to set absolute goals, such as the number of active users and the decrease in churned users. These absolute numbers are what truly matter when it comes to measuring growth.

It's important for teams to take credit for what they do, rather than solely relying on natural growth. For example, if you focus on growing traffic to a lower converting country like Germany, instead of a higher converting country like the U.S., you may hit your traffic goals but not your signup goals. It's essential to align your goals with the metrics that truly indicate growth for your business.

When it comes to measuring growth, one important metric to consider is the activation rate. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of activated users by the total number of users. There are two ways to move this metric in either direction: you can either change the number of activated users or change the total number of users. By focusing on these two components, you can effectively drive growth and improve your activation rate.

What is “Seeing The Matrix” For A Product Leader?

Being a product leader requires more than just analyzing data and making incremental improvements. To truly excel in this role, you need to be able to see the bigger picture and have a clear vision and strategy for your product. Data can help you iterate and make improvements, but it's vision and a clearly articulated strategy that will help you leapfrog your competition.

However, vision and strategy alone are not enough. It takes incredible self-awareness, humility, and courage to change organizational models, business models, and product object models. The most successful product leaders are the ones who are willing to reinvent themselves and their products to stay ahead of the curve. These "re-inventers" are the true "unicorns" in the product world.

When it comes to product development, it's important to never outsource your story or any component of your competitive advantage. Your story and competitive advantage are what set you apart from your competition, and outsourcing them can lead to a loss of authenticity and differentiation. Additionally, having a prototype is worth a hundred meetings. Prototypes allow you to visualize and experience your product in a tangible way, making product meetings much more productive and effective.

Consumer and prosumer products ultimately succeed because of how people feel about themselves when using them. This is why it's important to focus on ego analytics, surprise and delight, and hooks that appeal to our laziness, vanity, and selfishness in the first mile of the product experience. By understanding and leveraging these psychological factors, you can create a product that truly resonates with your target audience.

We live in a busy and skeptical world, which is why all products must capitalize on this truth rather than try to defy it. Perceived performance matters more than actual performance, especially when it comes to user experience. This perception can be achieved as much by designers as it can be by engineers. By focusing on the user's journey and asking three key questions on every screen - "how did I get here?", "what do I do now?", and "where do I go next?" - you can uncover flaws in the object model, user experience, onboarding process, and orientation.

Disruptive products are often simple point solutions that excel at doing one thing incredibly well. This simplicity is what attracts customers, and as a result, they want to bring these point solutions together for greater value and integration. This ultimately leads to the emergence of 10x better and simpler point solutions.

When it comes to driving product growth, surprise, delight, and intrigue are the most powerful and affordable drivers. These elements can create a positive and memorable experience for users, leading to increased engagement and word-of-mouth referrals.

Before concluding, here are three actionable pieces of advice for setting goals and achieving growth:

• 1. Set absolute goals that focus on key metrics such as active users and churn rates. These absolute numbers are what truly matter in driving growth.

• 2. Develop a clear vision and strategy for your product, but also be willing to reinvent yourself and your product to stay ahead of the competition.

• 3. Focus on the user experience by leveraging psychological factors such as ego analytics, surprise and delight, and hooks that appeal to laziness, vanity, and selfishness.

In conclusion, setting the right goals and having a clear vision and strategy are essential for achieving growth. By focusing on absolute metrics, reinventing yourself and your product, and prioritizing the user experience, you can drive meaningful progress and stand out in a competitive market.