Research, opinions, and data on product activation.
Time To Value: The metric most SaaS companies measure wrong
Most teams measure TTV as a single average. That's why the metric is useless. Here's what to measure instead, and why the distribution is the whole story.
Activation rate is a vanity metric. Here's what to track instead.
Activation rate is the most comforting lie in product analytics. Here's why, and the four metrics that replace it.
How to find which user attributes predict churn (without a data scientist)
The 'it's the free users' myth is wrong half the time. Here's how to find the real drivers of churn in your product — no data science degree needed.
Why averages hide your worst onboarding cohort
Your mean TTV looks fine. Your p75 tells a different story. A short read on why distributions beat averages — always.
Amplitude vs Mixpanel for Time To Value analysis
A balanced comparison of the two for measuring activation. Plus: what both miss, and how to get it.
7 questions Amplitude can't answer (and how to get them anyway)
A tour of the analytics questions standard product tools leave unanswered — and a way around each one.
The case for reproducible product research
AI dashboards hallucinate. Your Monday morning numbers shouldn't. A short argument for deterministic research.
What 'good TTV' looks like by company stage
A reference table of healthy Time To Value ranges for SaaS companies, from seed through Series B.