Run Solo, See Everything: Metrics That Matter
Today, we dive into metrics and dashboards to run a one-person company, turning scattered data into calm, confident decisions. You’ll learn how to choose the few numbers that guide every day, design a clear at-a-glance board, and set habits that actually stick. Whether you sell services, subscriptions, or products, this page gives you structure, stories, and practical setups you can copy, adapt, and share back.
Designing a One-Glance Dashboard
Stop scrolling through twelve tabs; build a single surface that answers the questions you ask every morning. Prioritize clarity, ruthless focus, and visible trends over theatrical charts. Your goal is not to impress investors, but to shorten the path from insight to action while conserving your limited time.
A North Star with Real Guardrails
Make the outcome a lever you can pull weekly: activated accounts, weekly active subscribers, delivered client milestones. If it depends on press, luck, or seasonality, it will break your focus. Favor metrics you can rescue with shipping, support, or outreach.
Set explicit bounds for burn rate, refund rate, and response time. When a guardrail trips, all growth work pauses until the number recovers. This removes guilt from saying no, while protecting reputation and health, which are your irreplaceable distribution channels.
Track inputs that predict the outcome: demo invites sent, onboarding sessions completed, helpful replies posted in communities. A solo founder wins by moving early, not analyzing late. Make the predictive inputs larger and easier to ship than the results they influence.
AARRR, Slimmed for Sanity
Pirate metrics are powerful, but you have only so many hours. Strip the funnel to acquisition that compounds, activation that proves value quickly, retention that funds tomorrow, and revenue that pays you on time. Everything else becomes secondary experiments with clear stop dates.
Runway and Burn You Can Sleep With
Calculate runway using average of the last three months, and add an emergency buffer. Track burn as fixed, variable, and optional. When optional spend exceeds a set percentage, schedule a pause week. Sleep beats velocity when you are the only engine.
Cash In Faster Than Work Goes Out
For services, invoice upfront or mid‑milestone and chart days sales outstanding like a heartbeat. For products, automate failed payment retries and dunning emails. Small improvements here compound into freedom to experiment, market, or take a well‑earned afternoon to think.
Events You Can Name in Your Sleep
Define three core events and their properties: discovered, activated, retained. Write them on a sticky note and use the same names everywhere. Consistency beats completeness, and makes migration, debugging, and reporting possible when you are both engineer and analyst.
Spreadsheets Are Serious
A well‑labeled spreadsheet with monthly actuals, a simple forecast, and a few scenarios will outperform complex dashboards you dread opening. Protect cells, document assumptions, and version with dates. When models live in plain sight, they get used, questioned, and improved.
Cadences, Stories, and Commitment
A dashboard without ritual becomes wallpaper. Create daily, weekly, and monthly moments that translate numbers into next steps. Borrow habits from pilots and doctors: checklists, debriefs, and briefings. Add stories from fellow solos to stay encouraged, accountable, and creatively stubborn.
Daily Five-Minute Standup with Your Board
Each morning, ask: what moved, what stalled, what one action improves the top metric today? Write the answer in your notes and schedule it immediately. Share your update with readers by replying below or tagging the community; public rhythm attracts allies.
Weekly Retros That Teach
On Fridays, review experiments, wins, and misses. Capture one lesson, one cut, and one commitment. Post a short summary to your subscribers and ask for one suggestion. Feedback loops turn distant readers into collaborators who help refine metrics and sharpen instincts.
Anecdotes that Stick
Alex, a solo SaaS founder, raised activation by emailing a two‑line checklist after signup; Maya, a consultant, shortened sales cycles by charting proposal delays; Devon, a writer, doubled renewals by spotlighting reader wins monthly. Share your own story so others learn faster.
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