Revenue growth looks great on paper but I’m wondering if we’re actually building something sustainable.
What metrics do you track to measure real health beyond just top-line numbers? Retention seems obvious but curious what else signals long-term viability.
Cash flow positive yet? That tells the real story.
Track unit economics by cohort. Group users by when you acquired them and see how much each group makes over time. If newer cohorts aren’t performing as well as older ones, you’re in trouble even if total revenue looks good. Payback period matters too. If it takes more than 12 months to recover what you spent acquiring customers, you’re burning through cash too fast to scale properly.
Customer acquisition cost versus lifetime value. If those numbers are getting worse you have problems.
Check your churn by cohort. I’ve seen apps with 20% monthly churn that looked fine until we mapped it out - turns out we were just swapping old users for new ones.
Track organic growth vs paid too. If ads go off and everything crashes, you’re just renting users. Real growth comes from referrals and people finding you naturally.
What saved us was watching engagement depth, not just retention. Users hitting 3+ core actions in week one had 4x better LTV. That became our focus.
Fundamentals stay the same - you want users who stick around and tell others about your product.
Check your trial-to-paid conversion rates over time. If they’re dropping despite good top-line growth, you’re probably attracting the wrong people.
I also track support cost per user. When that goes up, it usually means your product isn’t intuitive enough or you’re getting users who don’t actually need what you built.