Context
Personal context
It is important to be aware of the context when deciding on metrics. Don’t underestimate it.
- I want to make money from my product (Koshel).
- I need to present value to users clearly. The moment when a user truly understands the value is called the ‘a-ha moment’. Once the ‘a-ha moment’ is clear to a user, I’m able to sell the product, because they understand what they are paying for.
Product vision
I’m building another financial app called Koshel. Koshel’s vision is to help people reach financial freedom.
From my point of view, financial freedom is the moment when a person reaches a stable and constant passive income that can cover all of their needs (rent, food, sport, shopping, etc.), so they can quit working and do whatever they want.
Together
My need (making money from an app) + my vision = Koshel. Koshel is a way to sell my vision, because selling a vision on its own is too abstract. I could also sell it via courses, YouTube videos, etc. There are different ways, but I decided to sell it via a web app.
Metrics
My ultimate goal is for people to reach financial freedom using my app. I have to measure users’ behaviour with analytics tools to see whether they are moving towards this goal.
In my opinion, users have to complete several milestones to reach financial freedom:
(The order is not strict, but the first step feels mandatory to me.)
In the future, the app should cover all of these milestones, but right now users can only do the first one: understand their current financial state. This stage is the foundation and the starting point towards the ultimate goal, so it is the first step I measure in the main funnel.
When a user reaches the first milestone, ‘Understand their current financial state’, they are activated. The % of new sign-ups who reach it is the Activation rate. In Koshel, reaching it means adding their accounts and assets and seeing their net worth.
What exactly should I measure, and how do I define the Activation rate?
- User Problem
- “My money is spread across accounts and I don’t know my real numbers.”
- Behaviour I want
- The user adds their main accounts and assets, so the app can show their net worth.
- Feature
- Guided onboarding. Bank and broker connections (Monobank, IBKR). Manual entry for everything else.
- Metric: Activation rate
- % of sign-ups who add at least 2 accounts or assets within 7 days.
| User Problem | Behaviour I want | Feature | Metric: Activation rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| “My money is spread across accounts and I don’t know my real numbers.” | The user adds their main accounts and assets, so the app can show their net worth. | Guided onboarding. Bank and broker connections (Monobank, IBKR). Manual entry for everything else. | % of sign-ups who add at least 2 accounts or assets within 7 days. |
The numbers here (2 accounts or assets, 7 days) are my best guess for now. I will adjust them once I see how real users behave.
Activation rate has intermediate steps that I should measure as well:
- Where users come from before they reach the landing page
- The % of users who have signed up
- 3. Activation rate: the % of sign-ups who add their accounts and assets and see their net worth
- This gave me the idea that I have to increase the chances that users fill in their profiles with as much data as possible, so their net worth is as accurate as possible. To increase this chance I can provide:
- Onboarding (I’m betting on this approach currently, we’ll see)
- A prefilled dashboard with sample data so they first could see the potential value
- …
- This gave me the idea that I have to increase the chances that users fill in their profiles with as much data as possible, so their net worth is as accurate as possible. To increase this chance I can provide:
- Additional metric: Retention — % of activated users who came back and viewed their net worth in days 8 to 14 after activation. This metric will show whether users see real value in seeing their net worth.
Activation rate measures the first step in the funnel above. After I develop every feature that makes this first step complete, I will start measuring it and move on to the next steps, e.g. ‘Define the Golden number’. That step will have its own metrics, e.g. the % of users who click a banner encouraging them to define their Golden number, and the % who complete it. It will also raise questions, e.g. how do I define that the Golden number is completed? Should I show it in the UI?