I write about creating developer categories for dev tool startup founders. I founded or was the first VP of Marketing for 12 startups, including 3 unicorns.
I write about creating developer categories for startup founders. First Marketing VP at three dev-facing unicorns: Neo4j, Sourcegraph, and JFrog.
Top 3 Pre Revenue Metrics
Pre-revenue? Investors still want to know if you will grow. So here are the three most critical metrics to guide your business and impress investors.
New Users from New Accounts. This is the most basic metric. Can you find devs and convince them to try your product for free? If not, you need to work on nothing else except this.
The average usage of the product. Once a dev uses the product, do they use it again? And again?
New Users from Existing Accounts. Are your users convincing their colleagues to use the product? How viral is it?
Different products have different usage profiles. Some may be used weekly, some monthly, and some daily. Hours spent do not correlate with the value delivered. But you have a problem if users try it once and never again. Show how usage increases over time.
How to create an exponential growth curve.
You assemble this by layering three growth patterns on each other:
First, add new logo accounts every month.
Second, increase the number of users at each account every month.
Third, increase the average usage of your product per user every month. This is also known as engagement.