North-star driven development

Startups are often compared to team sports because they require all members' focused and coordinated efforts to achieve a common goal. However, just like in sports, it's easy for a startup team to lose sight of that goal and become distracted by individual objectives, leading to poor prioritization, coordination, and a dip in motivation.

This lack of direction and motivation can harm a startup's success, especially when teams feel like they're moving in different directions. To combat this, startups must align everyone in the company around a measurable common goal, which is referred to as a North Star metric.

A North Star metric is a quantifiable and singular objective that all team members can focus on and work towards together. It provides a clear direction for the team and ensures everyone is working towards the same goal. By staying focused on the North Star, teams can avoid the pitfalls of poor prioritization, coordination, and motivation and ultimately achieve success together.

In order to create a North Star metric, it's essential to consider the startup's ultimate goal and identify the one metric that best represents progress towards that goal. This metric should be simple, easy to measure, and something all team members can understand and contribute towards.

Once a North Star metric has been identified, it's essential to communicate it to everyone in the company and ensure it becomes a central part of the startup's culture. This means setting goals and milestones based on the metric, regularly tracking progress, and celebrating achievements.

By focusing on a North Star metric, startups can ensure that all team members are working towards the same objective, which helps to improve coordination, prioritization, and motivation. This ultimately leads to a greater chance of success for the startup.