The saying goes, “you get what you measure.” Therefore, defining an authentic growth metric is crucial for optimizing your efforts and achieving sustainable success. Here at Sidekick, our growth team monitors various metrics, but they all ultimately contribute to our north star: Weekly Active Users (WAU). We chose this metric based on the following criteria:

• Retention: Any authentic growth metric needs to account for retention. This ensures you’re delivering value that keeps users coming back. In the consumer world, metrics like Daily Active Users (DAU) and WAU are commonly used, while focusing solely on downloads or registrations offers no insight into user engagement or value creation.
• Meaningful Interaction: Defining “active” users is equally important. For apps or games, meaningful interactions, not just visits or sessions, should qualify as activity. For Sidekick, active users are those who take high-value actions like tracking or scheduling emails.
• Relevance: The chosen metric needs to be relevant to your product’s intended use. If your product is designed for daily use, DAU might be more suitable, while WAU makes sense for weekly usage. Focusing on Monthly Active Users (MAU) for a daily-use product can be misleading, as it might include users who only engage sporadically and aren’t genuinely valuable.
• Brutal Honesty: We’ve all seen headlines like “Company XYZ Sees 452% Growth!” or “XYZ Gains 10,000 New Users!” But let’s be honest: 452% growth of a small number is still small. Similarly, growing from 10 million to 10.01 million users isn’t a significant achievement, especially if it takes an unreasonable amount of time. Frame your numbers honestly by reporting:
  
  • Percentage increase
  • Absolute increase
  • Timeframe of growth

Remember, growth isn’t just about acquisition. Authentic growth encompasses the entire user journey, including activation, retention, referral, and revenue. This is what product-driven growth is all about.