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How to Calculate & Maintain a Healthy Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

ConversionXL

That’s why Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is such a critical metric. But what if your product offers a free trial and your data team tells you it takes 30 days on average for “free trial users” to become paid customers. And what if your product is freemium (i.e. LTV/CAC – Understanding the golden metric.

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Why vanity metrics are dangerous

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Why vanity metrics are dangerous In a previous post, I defined two kinds of metrics: vanity metrics and actionable metrics. In this post, Id like to talk about the perils of vanity metrics. My personal favorite vanity metrics is "hits."

Metrics 167
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Minimum Viable Product: a guide

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 3, 2009 Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. MVP, despite the name, is not about creating minimal products. We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration.

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How to make the most useful dashboard

Berkonomics

If your business has no trade with Japan that could be affected by arbitrage, early shipments or other tactics that take advantage of the moving value of these currencies, that statistic is irrelevant to the dashboard – even if interesting to you. Find metrics that will be “leading indicators” of trouble to come.

Japan 62
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Massacre at IBM

Steve Blank

Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant. I want to tell you a story about how a team pivoted and succeeded by synchronizing product and customer development. We shut down production to setup your machine.”

San Jose 256
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The Principles of Product Development Flow

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, July 13, 2009 The Principles of Product Development Flow If youve ever wondered why agile or lean development techniques work, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen is the book for you.

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Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, October 5, 2008 The product managers lament Life is not easy when youre working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. I met one recently that is working on a really innovative product, and the stories I heard from their development team made me want to cringe.