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.

We didn't take the approach of getting a billion users and figuring out how to make money later; we focused on how to monetize if we could get to 100 million monthly active users.

For paid growth, ensure you have revenue before investing in ads, and understand your customer acquisition cost (CAC) versus the lifetime value (LTV) of your users to ensure profitability.

The best action to define an active user is one that indicates genuine engagement with your product, filtering out superficial interactions.

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.

It's impressive when founders can fluently discuss key metrics like daily active users or annual revenue per user, as it shows they are in command of their metrics.

Our advertising business has grown significantly, from 40 million AR in ad revenue last year to over 200 million AR this year, indicating strong market demand.

If your product is social in nature, having more users improves the experience, making it essential to focus on virality and referrals.