Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#1

Post by paulsingh » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

website: dashboard.io

I've been thinking about this idea for a while now and finally got around to building the prototype this weekend.

The idea is that you'd drop my JS snippet on your site and I'd start building the "AARRR" table (which I'm actually building this week but imagine slide 4: http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version).

Basically, the system will build that table out for you and then show you how your startup stacks up against others in your space.

To be clear, I'll never share your data with anyone. So, if you're a "hosting" company, I'd show you your AARRR table and then show you how the average "hosting" company's metrics look.

Feedback? Thoughts? Concerns?

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#2

Post by carbocation » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 9:53 PM UTC

Google Analytics does this ("benchmarking"), at least for traffic information (time on site, visitors, etc). Admittedly I don't think they do a great job of it, but are you aware of their offering, and can you explain how you'd distinguish yours from theirs?

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#3

Post by paulsingh » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 10:02 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #2

Google Analytics does this ("benchmarking"), at least for traffic information (time on site, visitors, etc). Admittedly I don't think they do a great job of it, but are you aware of their offering, and can you explain how you'd distinguish yours from theirs?

Yep, Google's benchmarking is cool but doesn't help much when you're trying to figure out how you're doing as compared to other startups in your space.

I'd like to fix that with this.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#4

Post by sibsibsib » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

are you planning on adding some kind of tour? I'd like to see screenshots before diving in.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#5

Post by pearanalytics » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 10:41 PM UTC

I'm very interested in this, but even just to auto track funnel metrics. If you can show me other startups in my space, that's just icing on the cake.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#6

Post by pearanalytics » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 10:46 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #2

Google Analytics does this ("benchmarking"), at least for traffic information (time on site, visitors, etc). Admittedly I don't think they do a great job of it, but are you aware of their offering, and can you explain how you'd distinguish yours from theirs?

I see this competing more with Kiss Metrics actually. Especially since they went all expensive on us.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#7

Post by paulsingh » Sun, Apr 17, 2011, 11:58 PM UTC

pearanalytics wrote: post #6

carbocation wrote: post #2

Google Analytics does this ("benchmarking"), at least for traffic information (time on site, visitors, etc). Admittedly I don't think they do a great job of it, but are you aware of their offering, and can you explain how you'd distinguish yours from theirs?

I see this competing more with Kiss Metrics actually. Especially since they went all expensive on us.

Actually, I don't see them as competitors at all. If you really want flexibility/configurability, go with them. I just wanted this to provide a baseline and put some of McClure's stuff into an actual tool that anyone could use.

Someday, I imagine that I'll have a set of public pages where you can actually see "baselines" of what basic conversion rates look like for saas/hosting/consumer/whatever companies.

Fundamentally, I just want to see a bit more transparency. Startups shouldn't have to operate in the dark.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#8

Post by paulsingh » Mon, Apr 18, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

sibsibsib wrote: post #4

are you planning on adding some kind of tour? I'd like to see screenshots before diving in.

yep, coming soon. :)

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#9

Post by ra » Mon, Apr 18, 2011, 12:04 AM UTC

Sounds very neat. I just gave you my email in the signup.

Re: Show HN: See how your startup stacks up against others in your space

#10

Post by pmjoyce » Mon, Apr 18, 2011, 11:27 AM UTC

Sunnytrail [1] offers a service for SaaS providers to track key metrics once they have paying customers. However, they don't (yet) offer the most interesting part of your idea, comparing results against others in your industry.

It's a fascinating and a non-trivial problem you're addressing here and I'm interested to see how you approach it. Get it right and it could add huge amount of value.

The three toughest challenges as I see it:

1. Standardising metrics across a broad range of different business stages, verticals and models to provide a meaningful number (compare apples with apples).

2. Helping users to identify appropriate metrics from each of the AARRR categories. I.e. indicative and actionable.

3. The perennial problem of identifying unique users so that the behaviour of new or repeat visitors can be accurately measured prior to signup. IP addresses are not reliable (NAT & dynamic IPs), cookies can be flushed and potential customers have opportunity to access a service from a variety of devices - I know the folks at KISSmetrics put a lot of work into this.

[1] https://www.thesunnytrail.com/

edited for readability