For consumer startups, tracking headline user growth is crucial because monetization often comes later, and a good growth rate is 15% month-over-month, which can lead to a 5x increase in user base annually.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A good growth rate during Y Combinator is five to ten percent week over week; hitting ten percent weekly is considered exceptional.

If you're only achieving one percent weekly growth, it indicates that you haven't figured out your business model yet, which may not be a good sign for a startup with billion-dollar potential.

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.

Four months in, having only 3,000 accounts for a consumer startup is not very good, and it surprised me how long it can take to build something worthwhile.