

Analytics for startups: What should I track? - suhail
http://blog.mixpanel.com/2009/03/analytics-for-startups-what-should-i-track/

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patio11
At a bare minimum you should have Google Analytics integrated into your site
before beta starts. Its simply too powerful to avoid doing. (If you hate the
idea of the borg having your data, I suggest getclicky.com , but it is grossly
inferior for tracking conversions currently.)

I'd suggest everyone read the Startup Metrics for Pirates presentation, which
is a work of awe-inspiring genius. Seriously. Read it, make money. It took me
probably 18 months to learn as much doing thing the long way as this
presentation will teach you.

[http://www.slideshare.net/Startonomics/startup-metrics-
for-p...](http://www.slideshare.net/Startonomics/startup-metrics-for-pirates-
presentation)

Anyhow:

Identify your key conversions early. Track the heck out of them. Hint: does
money change hands? If yes, its a key conversion.

Then build backwards to things which are necessary prerequisites for your
money conversions. In my case, I sell software. The majority of sales happen
as a result of free trials. Accordingly, I track the free trials. I also track
successful installs of the free trials. Those numbers should be roughly
proportional and periodically increasing or I'm doing it wrong.

Incidentally, the problem with data is that there is too much of it. Analytics
will _drown you in data_ if you let it. Get in the habit of not looking at
anything that doesn't have the prospect of an _actionable decision you can use
to increase business value_ from it. For example, I could tell you what
percentage of German users use Firefox, but knowing that doesn't help me sell
software, so I don't slice data that way.

~~~
huhtenberg
Re: "hating the borg having all your data". If the budget has an extra 4-5K in
it, the GA can be replaced with its standalone version - Urchin.

<http://www.google.com/urchin/index.html>

~~~
pxlpshr
I'm a big fan of Mint - no, not the financial app.

<http://haveamint.com>

$30 and tons of plugins... does a great job giving us the type of data we
really only have time to care about. I run both GA and Mint, but Mint provides
real-time data and better referrer links so we can dig deeper into sites and
find comments about our products/us.

------
ctingom
[http://www.carsonified.com/dropsend-sale/things-potential-
bu...](http://www.carsonified.com/dropsend-sale/things-potential-buyers-are-
asking-about-dropsend)

------
intranation
Common sense says to track absolutely _everything_. Flickr (care of Cal
Henderson) have written extensively about metrics and analysis.

A framework that lets you track the results of A/B variate (or bucket) testing
helps for trying new things, too.

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vaksel
as a startup you shouldn't track anything beyond the basics(i.e. # of
users)...finish the website first...add the features....then when you have
nothing to do, you can focus on doing all that a/b testing. If you spend the
time building that prior to launch, you are wasting your time.

~~~
jfarmer
Two can play at that game!

As a startup you should build the smallest test case for your product, test
it, and iterate as the data comes in. That means data collection and analysis
from day 1.

~~~
suhail
++jfarmer, btw you need to write more, I miss it =)

