Founders love dashboards, but let’s be honest, half the numbers are noise, and the rest just confirm what we want to believe.
Startups don’t fail because they move too slowly, they fail because they chase the wrong kind of momentum.
If you’re celebrating big numbers on your dashboard but struggling to grow revenue, you’re not building a business, you’re building an illusion. Vanity metrics feel good. They look great in pitch decks. But they won’t save you when the cash runs dry.
If you want to build something real, you need to be brutally honest about what you’re tracking. That means letting go of surface-level stats and focusing on the signals that actually drive traction, even if they’re harder to face.
In this post, we’ll unpack what fake progress really looks like, why it’s so tempting, and how to shift your focus to the metrics that matter.
Fake progress is what happens when a business appears to be growing but isn't making any meaningful headway.
It’s progress in appearance only, often driven by surface-level metrics that look good in pitch decks or investor updates but don’t reflect sustainable growth.
This is often caused by a focus on vanity metrics, numbers that can be easily manipulated or misunderstood. The problem is, they don’t reflect your company’s core goals, like revenue, retention or product-market fit.
Let’s take a few examples…
On our FounderMetrics podcast, SteadyPay’s John Downie talked to our founder and CEO, Ifty Nasir, about vanity metrics:
“If you ask someone what their North Star metric is, they’ll give you something that’s either very vanity or customer-focused. Oh, we're really into NPS (Net Promoter Score). Well of course you are, of course you have to listen to the voice of the customer.
I think that, in the modern business environment, you have to be really ruthless about what you’re tracking. And because companies now have the resources to track everything, filtering through that noise and identifying what’s important is more crucial than ever.”
Vanity metrics are seductive as they offer instant gratification and make great slides for board meetings. For founders, these metrics often offer the hope that their strategy is working.
Many founders fall into this trap as these metrics are easy to generate, they feed the ego, and help them to tell a positive story, but they often hide deeper issues like poor retention.
Even if you're seeing a surge in attention, the question you need to keep asking is: are we building something people truly want?
The longer a company relies on vanity metrics to justify its strategy, the harder it becomes to face the uncomfortable truths that come with digging into real performance. Real progress demands discipline, honesty, and often a willingness to confront what's not working.
“Founders often prioritise growth at all costs, and in doing so, they mistake noise for progress. Without a disciplined focus on actionable metrics, you're building a house of cards.” - Sean Ellis, growth expert and author of Hacking Growth.
Vanity metrics don’t build businesses, they build illusions. If you’re still clinging to these, it’s time for a hard reset.
Here’s what fake progress looks like, and what to track if you actually want to grow.
Vanity: “We had 100,000 visitors last month!”
Reality check: But only 0.3% signed up? That’s not growth — that’s leakage.
What to track instead:
Traffic without action is just noise. You’d be better off with 10,000 qualified visitors who actually convert than 100,000 browsers who bounce.
Vanity: “20,000 downloads in our first week!”
Reality check: If 85% never opened the app again, you’ve got a leak, not momentum.
What to track instead:
Downloads are ego stats. Retention is proof of value. No one sticks around for a mediocre product.
Vanity: “We hit 50,000 Instagram followers!”
Reality check: Two clicks and zero leads? Congrats on the audience that does nothing.
What to track instead:
Followers are a rented audience. Measure how many actually engage, and whether that engagement leads to anything useful.
Vanity: “150,000 subscribers!”
Reality check: 3% open rate, 5% unsubscribed last week. You’re clogging inboxes, not building relationships.
What to track instead:
A massive list that doesn’t respond is a dead asset.
Vanity: “We got covered in TechCrunch!”
Reality check: It drove 80 visits and no signups. I hope the screenshot was worth it.
What to track instead:
Press is great for credibility, but if it doesn’t feed your funnel, it’s not growth, it’s theatre.
Vanity: “4,500 trials this month!”
Reality check: Only 50 paid. You gave away value and called it traction.
What to track instead:
Real traction is about quality, not quantity. It’s the boring, uncomfortable metrics like retention, conversion, and cash flow that actually move the business forward.
If people won’t pay, you haven’t solved a real problem. Revenue is the ultimate vote of confidence.
On FounderMetrics season two, Business Growth Institute Founder Trevor Stevenson-Platt outlined the key metrics for his business:
“The most crucial factor is the cash position of the business, which we are very clear on.We also use something called the DuPont formula, which allows us to stitch together the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement.
Through this lens, we examine the assets of the business and how well they're performing. You assess the assets, and the income generated from them. If you get this right, it becomes a leading indicator rather than a lagging one.”
Real progress isn’t always flashy. Sometimes it looks like incremental improvements in your onboarding flow or a small uptick in activation rate. But these compound over time and actually move the needle.
Focus on metrics that indicate long-term value, such as retention, customer satisfaction, and referrals.
Link measurement to business outcomes, looking at revenue growth, profit margins, and churn reduction. Use metrics you can act upon and test against.
Here are some healthy, non-vanity metrics to look for:
Slack’s early growth team paid close attention to message volume per user, not just signups. They discovered that users who sent at least 2,000 messages were far more likely to stick around.
By focusing on that engagement threshold, Slack could improve onboarding and long-term retention. When message volume dropped, they knew something was wrong with the user experience.
TILLIT Founder Felicia Hjertman, speaking to Ifty on FounderMetrics, explained the key metrics for her business:
“Our North Star metric is net cumulative flows. What that means for us is that we look at all of the inflows - all of the money that people have added to the platform, either through deposits or transfers - and then we look at all of the outflows - all the ways that people are removing money from the platform.
That’s the guiding metric we believe in, because it helps us to get answers to questions like: “Are people valuing our service? Are they willing to pay for it?” And that helps us to set our platform fees and to determine those fees based on the amounts of money that people are placing in TILLIT and leaving there.”
The numbers that matter aren’t always the ones that impress. Track what drives value, not just vanity.