Airbnb, Facebook, and Slack used different metrics because they focused on different growth strategies. Airbnb focused on consumption growth, Facebook on engagement growth, and Slack tracked both the number of paid teams and the number of successful teams.
Airbnb chose Nights Booked to measure consumption growth. Since properties vary in price, and pricing is influenced by location and regional consumption levels, revenue alone cannot accurately reflect the volume of successful transactions. Therefore, Nights Booked became a more consistent metric for measuring actual platform usage.
Facebook developed its metrics after studying user retention curves. The team identified 7 friends in 10 days and 10 friends in 14 days as important thresholds because users who reached these milestones were more likely to remain active. These metrics served as proxies for whether users had established enough social connections to experience the platform’s value.
Slack also considered retention when defining successful teams. It found that 93% of teams that had exchanged 2,000 messages were still using Slack. This suggested that reaching 2,000 messages was a useful indicator that Slack had become part of a team’s daily communication workflow.
However, if these metrics become the sole targets, teams may fall into the trap of Goodhart’s Law. Airbnb might offer aggressive discounts for long-term bookings or promote cheaper properties, potentially reducing user satisfaction. Facebook might push users to add more friends, including strangers, without building meaningful social connections. Similarly, Slack could inflate message counts through automated messages, even though higher message volume does not necessarily mean the product has become genuinely integrated into a team’s workflow.
source: https://future.com/north-star-metrics/
