Startup Metrics for Pirates

Right, my problem with this particular set of slides wasn't being too vague, it was that it was a little too busy/crammed with information to really make sense of it. While it looked valuable, it seems more difficult to extract it from the slides than it is worth (at least to me). I'm sure seeing a presentation on it would be well worth the time, however.

Very loosely. You have to understand the nature of a business before you start prescribing metrics to watch. A manufacturer wouldn't use these as success metrics. If we just focus on web-tech we're still left with a buch of questions: Is the business B2C, B2B, Symmetric (User pays) or Asymmetric (3rd party pays - e.g. Google users vs. Google advertisers)?

For asymmetric businesses or high-dollar ($10k+/sale) enterprise/B2B most of these metrics are good-intentioned but likely to send the business astray.

For example: in low-volume/high-dollar B2B and most enterprise, 98% of the time needs to be spent focused on Average Sales Price (ASP) and Average Time to Close (ATC). To minimize ATC and maximize ASP you're trying to listen closely to pain points, determine champions, help win cross department fiefdom battles, get the purchasing department to pay before your company runs out of cash, etc.

Dave's suggested metrics start coming into play for symmetric low-dollar subscriptions to thousands and 10s of thousands. These are the types of markets he understands well, and that's aok, but that's not everyone's business and the advise should be taken with a grain of salt.