North Star Metrics and Counter Metrics

A collection of vocabulary flashcards defining North Star Metrics at various types of companies, their tradeoffs, and the role of counter metrics.

North Star Metric

The single metric that best reflects the value your product delivers to customers over time.

Counter metric

A supporting metric used alongside the North Star Metric to measure quality, retention, or unintended consequences.

Purpose of counter metrics

To avoid optimizing one metric in ways that hurt the user experience or business.

Marketplace NSM

Number of completed transactions (Commonly used by companies like Airbnb, Uber, and DoorDash).

Marketplace NSM Tradeoff

It doesn't capture quality, is skewed by power users, and misses supply-side health.

Stronger Marketplace Metrics

Repeat booking rate, supplier utilization, and median satisfaction per cohort.

Social Media / Media NSM

Time spent (Commonly used by companies like Spotify, Netflix, and TikTok).

Media NSM Tradeoff

It doesn't distinguish active engagement from background usage and can reflect addiction.

Stronger Media Metrics

Songs saved per user per week, library depth, D7 retention, and active listening hours.

Search NSM

Number of daily successful searches (Commonly used by companies like Google and Perplexity).

Search NSM Tradeoff

'Successful' is hard to define, dominated by power users, and misses post-search behavior.

Stronger Search Metrics

Follow-through actions, sentiment signals, searches per user by cohort, and response time.

Productivity / SaaS NSM

Weekly active teams or workspaces with 5+ contributors.

E-commerce NSM

Number of purchases per month.

EdTech NSM

Weekly active learners who complete a lesson.

Creator Economy NSM

Posts with engagement in the last 7 days.

Health & Wellness NSM

Users completing 90% of weekly goals.