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Startup KPI Tracker

L6Business analysisOperating modelgovernanceStages 0 to 2

Reference model

The Startup KPI funnel under a North StarA banner for the North Star metric, the one number that best shows customers getting value. Below it a funnel of five stages — acquisition, activation, retention, revenue and referral — each with the question it answers. Underneath, a weekly strip comparing this week with last week for three example metrics and whether each moved the right way.North Star metricThe one number that best shows customers getting value — it rises when the business is truly doing better.AcquisitionDo people find you?ActivationDo they get first value?RetentionDo they come back?RevenueDo they pay?ReferralDo they tell others?METRICTHIS WEEKLAST WEEKMOVEMENTRFQs received86Up 33% — betterRework rate (%)4.84.2Up 14% — worseDebtor days7173Down 3% — betterLook at the same numbers on the same day each week: read the movement, not just the level.

Acquisition, activation, retention, revenue and referral: the path of a customer. The North Star is the one number that says it is working.

About this model

A young business needs three to five numbers it can read every week, not a dashboard. Choose the one number that best shows customers getting value (the North Star), then a few that follow the customer from first contact to repeat business and cash — and look at them on the same day each week.

Dave McClure (AARRR “pirate metrics”), Sean Ellis (the North Star metric) and Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz (Lean Analytics: the One Metric That Matters) · 2007–2013

How to read it

  • Pick a North Star: the one number that best shows customers getting value. Then pick three to five metrics along the customer’s path, each with a clear direction of good.
  • Each week enter this week’s number beside last week’s. A metric you cannot read weekly belongs in a heavier tool.
  • Read the movement, not the level: how many are moving the right way, which moved the wrong way, and one line on why.

What this does

Picks the 3-5 numbers that actually matter before a business has enough going on to need a full Balanced Scorecard — a weekly discipline, not a system.

When to use it

Ideation through Startup, for a team too small to need four scorecard perspectives but that still needs to know if the week went well.

Not when: Once the business has multiple functions with genuinely different objectives — move to the Balanced Scorecard, which is built for exactly that.

What happens next

As the business adds functions and objectives multiply, this graduates into the Balanced Scorecard.

Golden thread

Builds on ←

    A starting point: it needs no earlier tool.

    Feeds into →

    • bsc

    Framework library: Governance and KPIs (layer L6), lifecycle stages 0 to 2.

    Use this tool, free

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    Hand-built by Eccellere and reviewed by Eccellere on 02/11/2026. Guidance, not advice: apply your own judgement.