Welcome back Data Under Glass, your weekly strategic intelligence extracted from real battlefield deployments, packaged for leaders who need to win, not just understand.
I've rebuilt management reporting for founders who celebrate MoM growth while missing quarterly targets. The pattern is clear: 80% of tracked metrics are vanity signals. Numbers that make you feel productive while the business quietly drifts toward irrelevance.
Your dashboard isn't telling you the truth. It's telling you the story you want to hear.
Today, you're getting the Actionable Metrics Framework. How to separate effort theater from outcome intelligence, why "10,000 subscribers" means nothing if none of them buy, and the story of how cutting tracked metrics from 47 to 9 raised revenue 34% in one quarter.
If it doesn't change behavior, it's not insight, it's entertainment.
— Anderson Oz'.
From The Operator's Desk
Case In Point: D2C brand (Seed stage, consumer goods)
Problem: Tracked 47 metrics weekly + Celebrated "growth." + Missed revenue three quarters straight + Burn rate climbing.
Dashboard focused on: website visitors, Instagram followers, page views, email list size, impressions, app downloads. Team optimized for: content output (4 posts/day), influencer deals (15 active), and email frequency (3x/week).
Reality: Month 6 revenue was 61% of target. CAC doubled. Repeat purchase rate was 8% (target: 25%).
They were confusing audience building with business building. Every Monday celebrated follower growth. Every Thursday showed revenue decline.
Intervention:
Cut tracked metrics from 47 to 9 across three clusters:
Revenue Intelligence (3):
Revenue-Generating Subscribers (RGS)
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by cohort
Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR)
Acquisition Efficiency (3):
Cost per Revenue-Generating Customer
Payback Period
Sales Qualified Lead (SQLs) vs. Total Leads ratio
Engagement Depth (3):
Daily Active Users completing purchase steps
Click-to-Purchase Conversion
Scroll Depth on Product Pages
New question at standups: What moved revenue this week?
Outcome:
Revenue hit 112% of target. CAC dropped 23%. Repeat purchase rate climbed from 8% to 19%.
They stopped optimizing Instagram aesthetics and started fixing checkout friction. Cut emails from 3x to 1x per week, but triggered campaigns tripled click-throughs.
When you measure the wrong things, you optimize the wrong behaviors. Once they asked "Did this subscriber buy?" instead of "Did this subscriber sign up?" everything changed.
The Vanity Trap: Why Most Dashboards Are Fiction
Vanity metrics look good. They trend upward, fill board decks, and fool teams into celebrating momentum while missing targets.
Hard truths founders avoid: