So what?

You got a million unique page views last month? You have 5,000 newsletter subsribers? You have 20 percent market share?

Awesome. So what?

If you can’t answer that “so what?” you’re measuring yourself on the wrong thing. You’re using a vanity metric that makes you feel good—it’s a big number—but doesn’t necessarily advance your bottom line.

Worse, since you get what you measure, a bad metric may lead you to invest your time and money where it doesn’t make a difference.

The Periscope team points out that faulty measures lead you to optimize for the wrong thing:

if we were motivated to grow [daily active users], we’d be incentivized to invest in a host of conventional growth hacks, viral mechanics, and marketing to drive up downloads. This direction doesn’t necessarily lead to a better product, or lead to success for Periscopers.

Periscope instead tries to maximize time watched, which they say builds value for both customers and the company.

What would you say if someone asked “so what?” about your metrics?