Kill Your KPIs. Use This Approach Instead.

If you’re like me, about a dozen years ago, you got on the MVP/lean startup bandwagon thanks to Eric Ries. Who didn’t want to “use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses”?

But when you read that line, you might notice something. Being lean and focusing on what’s minimally viable was advice for the startup — to leapfrog the competition to market, save time/money/resources, and get into the black quicker.

Sure, the customer was in that equation, but just as a cog in the flywheel, which told the company what minimum features the product required to build momentum without being bogged down.

Nowadays, with the advent of AI, agility is more accessible, as the speed at which companies can innovate and iterate is accelerated, democratized, and scalable. Operating as a lean company is literal — a seven-figure entrepreneur with a tiny team I know recently told me, “With AI, I am the equivalent of the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ Pull back the curtain, and one guy is pulling all the levers and pumping out steam.”

Getting to viable — the “V” in MVP — is much quicker and more affordable. The hard part is making that “V” stand for valuable… to your customer.

Further, it’s not about the “P” for product, either. Chances are, your product isn’t the only one in your category that can solve your customers’ problems. Your edge makes the experience different: faster, more fun, pain-free, and more satisfying.

This is why we entrepreneurs must shift our focus from the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to the Minimum Valuable Experience (MVE). It’s not just about making something that works; it’s about creating an experience that people find indispensable.

In this article, I’ll make the case for why this evolution requires a deeper understanding of KPIs — not just as Key Performance Indicators but as tools to Keep People Interested, Informed, Involved, and Inspired.

Classic MVE Case Study: Airbnb

Before we get into KPIs, let’s clarify what an MVE is.

It’s all about creating an indispensable experience for your audience. Again, it’s not just about the product itself but how it integrates into and enhances your desired customers’ lives.

To illustrate the concept, let’s take a trip back to the early days of Airbnb, 2008–2010. Online vacation rental marketplaces weren’t a novel idea at that point — VRBO and HomeAway.com had been around for over a decade.

What Airbnb offered was something both different and better. They created unique and valuable experiences beyond just offering people a place to sleep, exemplifying the heart of a true MVE:

• The Origin Story: The idea for Airbnb originated when two co-founders, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, struggled to pay rent for their San Francisco apartment. They decided to rent out air mattresses in their living room to attendees of a design conference. They didn’t just offer a place to stay; they provided breakfast and even acted as local guides, creating a personalized and memorable experience for their guests.
  MVE special sauce: The personal touch and focus on hospitality became a core part of their brand.
• The “Photoshoot Initiative”: Early on, Chesky and Gebbia realized that the listings on their platform were not attractive because hosts were using low-quality photos. Understanding that great visuals are crucial for attracting guests, they rented a camera and went door-to-door in New York City, taking professional pictures of the listed spaces themselves.
  MVE special sauce: More appealing listings bolstered trust — a core component of the platform’s success.
• “1,000 True Fans” Strategy: Instead of trying to appeal to everyone from the start, Airbnb focused on building a loyal base of early adopters, which they referred to as “1,000 true fans.” The founders personally interacted with these early users, gathering feedback and tweaking the platform based on their needs and suggestions.
  MVE special sauce: This strategy ensured that the core experience was solid, creating a foundation for growth.
• Personalized Customer Service: In the early days, Airbnb’s founders took customer service very seriously. Chesky and Gebbia would often be the ones responding to customer inquiries and issues, providing personalized support to ensure that both hosts and guests had a positive experience. They also created a “handbook” for hosts with tips on creating an excellent experience for their guests.
  MVE special sauce: This level of personalized attention ensured that users felt valued and cared for, which was crucial for building trust in the early days when staying in a stranger’s home was still novel and somewhat risky.
• The Creation of Airbnb Experiences: Although this came a bit later (2016), it’s a continuation of their focus on the user experience. Airbnb expanded beyond just accommodations to offer “Experiences,” where locals could offer unique activities to guests, further enhancing the in-person experience.
  MVE special sauce: This move showed Airbnb’s commitment to enhancing the overall travel experience, ensuring that guests could have memorable and valuable interactions beyond just their stay.

Did you notice the key ingredient in the MVE special sauce? It’s always about the people — those creating the experience and those enjoying it. You must be relentless in your pursuit of ever-evolving and improving your user experience. This brings us to the importance of KPIs.

Putting People First in Your KPIs

Traditionally, KPIs have been used to measure business performance through metrics like sales, leads, and clicks. In my opinion, this often is a waste of time where you’re tracking for the sake of tracking.

Vanity metrics do nothing for you but provide hollow bragging rights. It reminds me of the Instagram influencer with 2M followers who couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts.

Two of the top startup killers are building what you think people want without validating it and not listening to your customers.

What businesses today need is a more human-centered approach to KPIs. Instead of dry, generic metrics, think of KPIs as tools to Keep People Interested, Informed, Involved, and Inspired. Here’s how:

1. Keep People Interested

Interest goes beyond just initial clicks. Measure how long people stay engaged with your content. Are they reading your blog posts to the end? Watching your videos in full? Engaging deeply with your interactive content? Tools like Google Analytics can help track engagement metrics such as session duration and pages per session.

2. Keep People Informed

Beyond counting shares and likes, assess how well your content educates your audience. Are they learning something new? Are you providing value that keeps them coming back for more? Track feedback and knowledge gained through surveys, quizzes, and follow-up content that tests their information retention.

3. Keep People Involved

Engagement isn’t just a metric; it’s about participation. Measure involvement in discussions, comments, and community activities. Are people contributing to your forums or social media pages? Are they participating in webinars or live Q&A sessions? Use tools like social media analytics to gauge community activity and participation rates.

4. Keep People Inspired

Gauge the emotional impact of your content. Are people feeling motivated, moved, or inspired by what you share? Sentiment analysis tools can measure this, evaluating the emotional tone of user comments and feedback.

Big Picture, Human-Focused KPIs

To truly measure how well you’re delivering an MVE, it’s essential to make a long-term commitment to measuring your KPIs. Here are a few of my favorites:

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV uses a simple survey to gauge customer satisfaction, loyalty, and enthusiasm and measures the total revenue a customer can expect over the span of their relationship with your business. A high CLV indicates you’ve got a strong customer following — that your brand is good at acquiring and retaining customers. This helps shift your focus from immediate profit to long-term profitability, emphasizing the value of creating lasting relationships.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS gives you insight into the likelihood that your customers will recommend your business to others. It goes beyond customer satisfaction to explore customer loyalty and advocacy. A high NPS indicates that your customers are not just satisfied but are enthusiastic promoters of your brand.

Customer Churn Rate (CCR)

This is a simple formula that measures how well you retain your customers. (It’s lost customers divided by total customers over a specific time period multiplied by 100.) A monthly CCR audit gives you a pretty clear indication if you’re doing a solid job keeping people inspired, informed, interested, and involved — or not.

Employee Satisfaction

Keeping people feeling good about your brand begins at home, as happy employees are more productive and provide better service to customers. You can measure employee satisfaction through surveys and other feedback mechanisms. Plus, high employee satisfaction supports lower turnover rates and a more motivated workforce, which has a positive impact on your overall customer experience.

Innovation Rate

Innovation is just as much a part of MVE as it is MVP. Innovation Rate tracks the number of new ideas generated, developed, and implemented in your business. A high innovation rate indicates a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability, which is crucial for staying relevant and meeting constantly evolving customer needs.

Follow Your North Star

Of all KPIs, there’s one big kahuna known as the North Star Metric (NSM) that everything else ladders up to. This metric should reflect the core value you’re providing to your customers.

For example, here are some NSMs for iconic customer-focused brands:

• Airbnb: Nights Booked
• Amazon: Number of Purchases Per Month
• Facebook: Monthly Active Users (MAU)
• Medium: Total Time Spent Reading
• Netflix: Hours Watched
• Peloton: Workouts Per Month Per Member
• Plaid: Bank Accounts Linked
• Quora: Number of Questions Answered
• Robinhood: Funded Accounts
• Shopify: Revenue Per Merchant
• Spotify: Total Listening Hours
• Uber: Number of Rides
• Zoom: Weekly Hosted Meetings

What do they all have in common? A relentless focus on all of the “I’s” in the redefined KPIs. Plus, one more: how Invested in your brand your customer is.

That’s the ticket to making the shift from MVP to MVE and rethinking KPIs from dry metrics to human-centered indicators of engagement. It’s all about one thing: creating consistent value that people love.

Remember, it’s not about what’s viable; it’s about what’s valuable. In today’s competitive landscape, creating a minimum valuable experience is the key to winning.

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