Metrics for Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur is challenging. There are a large number of unknowns to discover, hurdles to overcome, and obstacles to remove. Many entrepreneurs venture out on this challenging adventure with a little-to-no base of analytical data to assist them. Venturing out with the absence of necessary metrics may doom the pursuit before it even begins.

An entrepreneur is someone who is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation (May, 2009). In order to be successful at this, there need to be sustainable goals set for growth and performance that can be used for inspiration and motivation (Chedill, 2016). These goals must also be tied to metrics that can forecast success development and give the entrepreneur a clear understanding of the real-time viability of the ongoing business venture (Chedill, 2016). One of the primary metrics to track is revenues, which is one of the most straightforward metric for entrepreneurs to use (Croll & Yoskovitz, 2013). Entrepreneurs should not stop there since the revenue growth is not the entire picture of business health. Along with raw revenue, entrepreneurs should also track revenue per customer since that is a better indicator if actual business health (Croll & Yoskovitz, 2013). By doing so, entrepreneurs will have a clearer picture of whether or not money is left on the table, which could spell disaster for a new startup that has limited capital (Davenport et al., 2010).

Analytics may not be the first thing entrepreneurs look to spend their time tracking since there is such a large number of things that need to be done for a start-up, but tracking necessary analytics could be the difference between success and closing the doors.

What are the best services available to entrepreneurs to assist in tracking analytics?