CommitCheck: Frictionless Micro-Commitment Flow for Early-Stage Validation

We can go through the usual vanity metrics that are just inflated numbers that don’t lead to revenue or customers changing behaviors because of value. But I’ll tell you the one vanity metric that has bitten me and dozens of other founders who are humble enough to share. It’s when you get a false positive from a potential customer saying they like or would use your product when you’ve done a very poor customer discovery interview. At its basic this looks like asking a customer a binary question like “would you be interested in this?” They answer yes because they want to be polite. At its most destructive is when someone in a position of power like an executive says they would be interested but when it’s time to commit to anything it’s crickets. In other words, the worst vanity metrics are the ones that feed the confirmation bias in your head. I’ve lost millions on it. It’s forced us to change the way we run our venture studio. We don’t believe anything until someone pays money (and the further they pay in advance the better). Not that it’s that simple in practice but it’s the easiest way not to fall for vanity metrics. Sorry for the long diatribe. Probably my PTSD. But hope it helps.

We can go through the usual vanity metrics that are just inflated numbers that don’t lead to revenue or customers changing behaviors because of value. But I’ll tell you the one vanity metric that has bitten me and dozens of other founders who are humble enough to share. It’s when you get a false positive from a potential customer saying they like or would use your product when you’ve done a very poor customer discovery interview. At its basic this looks like asking a customer a binary question like “would you be interested in this?” They answer yes because they want to be polite. At its most destructive is when someone in a position of power like an executive says they would be interested but when it’s time to commit to anything it’s crickets. In other words, the worst vanity metrics are the ones that feed the confirmation bias in your head. I’ve lost millions on it. It’s forced us to change the way we run our venture studio. We don’t believe anything until someone pays money (and the further they pay in advance the better). Not that it’s that simple in practice but it’s the easiest way not to fall for vanity metrics. Sorry for the long diatribe. Probably my PTSD. But hope it helps.

We can go through the usual vanity metrics that are just inflated numbers that don’t lead to revenue or customers changing behaviors because of value. But I’ll tell you the one vanity metric that has bitten me and dozens of other founders who are humble enough to share. It’s when you get a false positive from a potential customer saying they like or would use your product when you’ve done a very poor customer discovery interview. At its basic this looks like asking a customer a binary question like “would you be interested in this?” They answer yes because they want to be polite. At its most destructive is when someone in a position of power like an executive says they would be interested but when it’s time to commit to anything it’s crickets. In other words, the worst vanity metrics are the ones that feed the confirmation bias in your head. I’ve lost millions on it. It’s forced us to change the way we run our venture studio. We don’t believe anything until someone pays money (and the further they pay in advance the better). Not that it’s that simple in practice but it’s the easiest way not to fall for vanity metrics. Sorry for the long diatribe. Probably my PTSD. But hope it helps.