For consumer startups, achieving at least 15% month-on-month growth in active users is ideal, with 10% being acceptable, while 5% is likely insufficient for long-term viability.

The growth rates of successful startups can range from twenty to two hundred percent month over month, but they typically cluster around twenty to fifty percent month over month.

As a startup grows, the focus shifts from just acquiring users to ensuring sustainable growth and revenue. We learned the hard way that even if users love our product, we must also pay attention to our overall growth metrics to avoid becoming a beloved startup that fails due to lack of financial viability.

Track the number of paying customers to measure growth; increasing customer acquisition rates can demonstrate to investors how quickly you're scaling.

While revenue is often the best primary metric, some startups may focus on active users, especially if building a large audience is a prerequisite for monetization.

If your startup has strong network effects, focusing on active users may be more important initially, with revenue becoming a focus later on. It's crucial to define what 'users' means for your startup, as it can vary significantly. For example, having 100 users could mean they just signed up or that they actively engage with your product daily for about 10 minutes. The latter is a much more valuable metric.

Real startup progress is defined by tasks that genuinely move the needle, such as growing your primary key performance indicator (KPI), which is typically either revenue or active users.

As a startup grows, it's crucial to monitor revenue per employee, ensuring that this number increases over time to avoid over-hiring and inefficiency.

For acquisition metrics, track signups per week and differentiate between organic users and those invited by others to understand growth better.