Retention

A product that works is not enough. A product that works is the floor, not the win. James Sinclair makes the point in Starting a Startup by reaching for the moment you meet a stranger. In as few as eight seconds, a smile, eye contact, and a handshake exchange a mountain of silent information, and you never get that first impression back. Software gets the same brutal window. He calls the standard the Minimum Delightful Experience — the wow you have to land almost immediately or lose the user for good. ...

The acquisition chart goes up and to the right. Everyone cheers. The chart is lying to you. James Sinclair cuts through the celebration in Starting a Startup with a line that should be on every founder's wall. Pull in users who leave and you have not grown. You have spent money to manufacture an exit. Growth that outruns retention is churn wearing a nicer outfit — all vanity, no sanity. He is hard on the growth tactics founders treat as magic. Product-led growth, viral loops, the strategy of the month — none of them is a strategy. They are tools, and they are neither cheap nor all-powerful. Run any of them well and they amplify a product people stay for. Run them on a leaky product and you are burning cash with extra steps, paying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom. ...