Page 91 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

Day 6 - Set Targets

The point of launching a business quickly is that you can get real data from real
customers. This will help you determine if the business is having an impact. But
how do you know what a good result is?

In examples where companies really take off, you don’t need to worry about this
step. Companies like Buffer and Dropbox never had to worry about whether or
not they were onto something; thousands of people were signing up. It was
obvious!

Similarly, when companies are an outright flop, that tends to be obvious as well.

They are the one-percenters. Most companies fall in the middle, so it’s important
to have some sort of framework around whether or not your business is going
well.

The way I like to think about this is to focus on the One Metric That Matters
(OMTM) at different stages in your business.52

When you launch, it makes sense to focus on the number of people who sign up
and pay you. Set a reasonable target that takes into consideration your reach and
your marketing efforts and price point.

People have a tendency to set really aggressive targets in business and I’ve
found those to be potentially de-motivating. Most businesses will naturally grow
over time if the fundamentals are right. When you are starting out, you have a
big hurdle to get over. Most people want a few runs on the board before they put
their trust in a business. Shoot for a few customers early on and set a realistic
monthly growth rate from there.

For WP Curve, I wanted to get ten customers in the first month or around $500
in MRR. From there I wanted to grow at 10% per month for at least the first six