Why Retention Is The Silent Killer

As a rough benchmark for evaluating startups at Andreessen Horowitz, I often look for a minimum baseline of 60 percent retention after day 1, 30 percent after day 7, and 15 percent at day 30, where the curve eventually levels out. It’s usually only the networked products that can exceed these numbers. That’s because networked products are unique in

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For many products, metrics often describe the customer acquisition goal in enough detail to provide sufficient management guidance. In contrast, the metrics for customer retention do not provide enough color to be a complete management tool. As a result, many young companies overemphasize retention metrics and do not spend enough time going deep en

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1. Retention drives acquisition: As you retain more users, those additional users take more of the key actions that accelerate acquisition, either through sharing, inviting, word-of-mouth, or creating content.