
The Only Metric That Matters: How many are really using your product? (2017) - fagnerbrack
https://news.greylock.com/the-only-metric-that-matters-now-with-fancy-slides-232474cf414c
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CPLX
I guess 4chan is one of the most valuable tech startups of the last decade or
two.

Or maybe there are other metrics that matter.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
The post didn't say anything about "value" in terms of money

 _good enough to raise money, or good enough to keep working on a feature or
product, or good enough to believe the product will grow into something much
bigger someday._

In the last sense, 4chan is probably in the top 10 of websites that have
impacted the web/world the greatest over the last 15 years.

~~~
rjbwork
I would absolutely say the top. They started meme culture, which has
absolutely taken over most of the social media sites.

/pol/ started the extreme Trump support, and made supporting him fun and
memey, ultimately leading to /r/The_Donald, and his eventual election to
POTUS. That has had quite a large effect on the world.

They've done gobs and gobs of things related to VG, hoaxes, cultural
obstruction, etc.

They are quite influential, just not in the way we typically think about
influence.

~~~
azeirah
4chan's influence on internet culture is _huge_.

/r9k/ played a big role in the whole incel thing, Elliot Rogers was treated as
a sort of deity there _before_ he went on a rampage.

Are there any serious, in-depth studies, stories or books or whatever about
4chan? I feel like politically and culturally, 4chan is one of the most
important sites on the internet. I'd like to read more on its influence

~~~
ehaliewicz2
> /r9k/ played a big role in the whole incel thing, Elliot Rogers was treated
> as a sort of deity there before he went on a rampage.

I'm pretty sure this only started afterwards, but I could be wrong. There are
histories of 4chan, but they are usually incomplete since the number of users
who kept track of things all the way from the beginning are few.

~~~
azeirah
I was on /r9k/ before what he did. He was definitely on their radar, and there
were nearly weekly discussions on him.

After the rampage he definitely got a lot more attention, but he definitely
had a strong presence before.

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nathan_long
If I could only pick _one_ metric for a business, I'd go with net revenue.
Otherwise it's an expensive hobby.

~~~
dirtyaura
Not necessarily. In my opinion, core metric should be a proxy for the value
the product provides. For example, for us at
[https://ouraring.com](https://ouraring.com), people buy the ring before using
the product.

Tracking revenue only would not reveal problems in the long-term benefit of
the product - it would be more like a proxy for marketing actions, not for the
core product benefit.

~~~
maneesh
From another wearable founder [1] to you, congrats on making a great product!
I'm wearing the new steel Oura right now. Although the firmware update this
week broke it for me on android :(

Still my favorite heart-rate enabled wearable out there!

[1] [https://pavlok.com](https://pavlok.com)

~~~
dirtyaura
Thanks! (I’m CTO, SW at Oura, but not an Oura founder).

New firmware and Android release coming soon that likely will help with your
issue

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edoceo
This whole time I thought it was Profit. Stupid me.

~~~
riquito
> This whole time I thought it was Profit. Stupid me.

You could be profitable with 1 user that pays way more than the rest (e.g. the
only "business plan" user, or an user that use the application more than the
others on a usage-based plan). If losing that customer means going out of
business than the company is not healthy.

~~~
edoceo
Of course that is a possibility.

I don't think you should do it that way though.

It's better to have 100 customers, each responsible for 1% of your income.

Source: self

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sunstone
Hmm is it one in ten searches that target Wikipedia?

