Startup: less reporting, more experiences!

A problem we often encounter at Growth Room is the time startups spend reporting. It may seem counterintuitive, but countless people spend more time measuring and analyzing data than producing it.

A business/startup is a living organization... that evolves!

Let's be clear: wanting to measure is always a good thing. The only problem is that at the beginning, at the genesis of a project, there is nothing to measure. So you have to roll up your sleeves and start running before you want to measure.

The advantage of an organization such as a business/startup is that its corporate purpose is very simple to understand: its raison d'être is to generate income. Therefore, in principle, its cardinal point is sales and the only really important metric at the end of the chain is the revenue generated.

Thus, the first task of the entrepreneur is to sell its product. Even before you have a product. This is why, at first, it is not particularly useful to overload yourself with a complex picture: intuition, the feedback of the first customers and all the possible and imaginable feedback say much more than the numbers.

Although each startup has its own growth strategy, it is possible to recognize patterns.

As an exception, a business may have a short- and medium-term goal other than revenue. For example: acquiring leads, acquiring users... But in general, this phase is relatively short. For example, contrary to popular belief, Facebook generated revenue very quickly. Few businesses can afford the luxury of not monetizing;)

Only once this stage has been completed and the product/market fit has been reached, the question of monitoring operations arises. But again, it's important to keep it simple!

Many growing startups and large groups spend a lot of time and resources on simple reporting, when that time, energy, and money could be better spent on growing.

The Growth Room Method

Chez Growth Room, we always advise entrepreneurs to have two monitoring tools: a dashboard and a journal.

The dashboard

The dashboard allows you to follow the company's main information at a glance. There are thus 3 main data:

• Key performance indicators (KPIs) : the aim is to simply summarize the main business metrics: customer lifetime value (how much a customer earns on average over the course of its existence), average margin per customer, maximum acquisition cost, etc.
• The AARRR funnel : if you don't know what it is, look This video urgently. The idea is to have a complete vision of conversion rates in the user cycle and above all to be able to assign value to each of your actions.

If my average user earns me €100 and 1/100 visitors end up paying, then a visit is worth €1. So the whole challenge of my acquisition strategy will be to pay less than €1 per visit.

• An acquisition chart : the idea here is to measure the weight and performance of each of the company's acquisition channels, based on three criteria: volume (in fact, we are looking for effective but also liquid channels, at high volume!) , conversion, and cost.

The logbook

The second tool is an Experiments log. Its aim is to be able to follow all the experiments carried out by your team at a glance.

An experience consists of several components:

• A title
• A description
• A hypothesis (an expected result)
• A score out of 10 that measures both the ease and the expected impact of the experience
• A manager (who is in charge of conducting the experiment in the team)
• A state that measures the progress of the experiment (Idea, Planned, For the next week, For the next week, In progress, To be analyzed, Success or Failure)

All of this can be summed up in this Google Sheets template (feel free to make a copy and make it your own!) :

Alternatively, the experience log can be built in the form of a Trello board:

Thus, the measurement of an activity can remain simple: a few figures, updated periodically, simple to analyze.

You can also add the monitoring of profit (or any other interesting metric if the company is not yet making money), weekly and not cumulative. Indeed, an easy rule to observe is to focus on a weekly growth of 7%.

Of course, everyone will be free to adapt these tools to their own hands but the message is simple: yes, everything must be measured but data analysis should not take more than 20% of your resources, because analysis does not make a business — it is one tool among others.

Read also: How to launch a startup in 48 hours