If you don't know where you are...

On April 20, 2016

…any direction is the right direction.

I once had a professor that always said that. It’s not something new, but it’s always been in my mind.

As entrepreneurs and product managers, this should be on our minds everyday.

It’s definitely related to Peter Drucker’s quote:

What gets measured gets improved.

If you want your product to grow, you need to keep track of key metrics. Some people know these metrics as key performance indicators. It’s the same thing.

These metrics give us our location in a map. We can only move in the right direction once we know them. We can only make informed decisions once we have some data about our key metrics.

Your sales funnel is your map [Source]

For example:

• If your product is an E-Commerce shop, your metrics will be related to your sales.
• If your product is a SaaS, your metrics will be related to your conversion funnel (turning visitors into trials and trials into paying customers)

You will always have a conversion funnel and it should guide your product decisions. You should always try to improve the conversion between the different steps in your funnel.

Next time you think about changing something in your product, look at your funnel. Is that decision going to improve your conversion funnel?

If you don’t have metrics for your funnel, you must set them up today. Until you do, every change, every feature, every experiment will be a shot in the dark.