“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
– Ernest Hemingway
To an extent what works for products as much as for people. Building a superior product is all about improving it.
We, at Hashbrown Systems, are true believer and serious practitioner of First Data. We have managed and built such systems for our customers and that has probably given us a true (or perhaps different) understanding of metrics and measurements.
Additionally, I personally am skeptical of numbers, impressions and engagement metrics provided by digital advertisers – google, Facebook, you name it. Those numbers come with a clause and with most things that come with a clause, there is a ‘lie’ i.e., embellishment of some sort somewhere, and that most often than not increases ad spend.
Hence it is advisable to develop your own measurements. At least that is what we have done at Machine Dalal.
We measure number of users, as we should, and we define our own engagement, and that engagement must have a direct positive bearing to our customer. Most of the times that number would be small but if you are able to identify the correct metric (something easier said than done), improving that metric would help the product grow.
One rule of building a product is, make something people use.
Another rule of building a product is, make something people pay for.
We started building our revenue stream right alongside building our product. So, along with our primary engagement metric(s), we started to measure our revenue.
And over the last month –
Gross Volume grew by 107.2 %
Spend per customer increased by 41.2%
Monthly Recurring Revenue improved by 104%
Average Engagement time per active user is about 8m 37s
Working under constraints has had a positive effect so far.
We have been able to innovate. Build things or work towards building things that we would not have otherwise – such as a search engine for our platform. This one had a regenerative effect on Machine Dalal. With search we are able to help consumers find the equipment but also understand demand, and the next step is to make the information freely available to the community.
Journey so far has not been treacherous, and that has helped improve and grow. Most importantly we have been able to control costs and utilize resources efficiently. This would be the stuff of legends, when we succeed.
Up until then, stay tuned, keep building things. It seriously is a joyful experience.