Track · 2:30 · Liner note
A Star to Sail By
A north star metric is the single measure that best captures the value a product delivers to customers, used to keep a team's many decisions pointed in one direction.
Sailors steered by one fixed point in the sky and corrected as the wind pushed them. A north star metric does the same job for a team: one measure of the value customers actually receive, chosen so that daily decisions can be checked against it. A Star to Sail By is about picking that point with care.
The test is whether the number can rise while customers are worse off. If it can, pick another. Keep the set small, write the definition down and let supporting metrics explain the movement.