Glossary
Growth terms defined in a sentence or two, with where they apply.
A
- Activation
Activation is when a new user first gets value from your product. Learn the formula, benchmark rates, and how to pick a milestone that predicts retention.
C
- Cohort
What a cohort is, how to build a cohort table by signup month, the formula for cohort rates, and the mistakes that make startup conversion data misleading.
G
- Growth loop
Growth loop defined: how to measure whether a loop feeds itself, a Strava example, a sales-led case, and the mistakes that turn loops back into funnels.
I
- ICE score
ICE score explained: how to rate impact, confidence and ease, multiply or average them, a worked example, and the mistakes that skew your backlog.
K
- K-factor
K-factor, or viral coefficient: invites per new user times invite conversion rate. How to calculate it, read it and fix a leaking invite loop.
N
- North star metric
A north star metric counts the one user action that shows your product delivered value. How to pick it, measure it weekly, and avoid vanity metrics.
P
- Payback period
Payback period is the months it takes to earn back customer acquisition cost from gross margin. Formula, benchmark context and common mistakes.
- Product-led growth
Product-led growth explained: how to measure it, survey data on free trials and freemium, common mistakes, and what a startup team can do this week.
R
- Retention
Retention measures how many customers and how much revenue you keep. Formulas for customer, gross and net retention, a worked example and common mistakes.
- Reverse trial
A reverse trial gives new users full premium access for a set time, then moves them to free. How to measure it, examples, benchmarks and common mistakes.
T
- Time to value
Time to value is how long a new user takes to get a real outcome. How to measure it, benchmark findings, common mistakes and what to fix first.
V
- Viral coefficient
Viral coefficient explained: the formula, a worked example, typical waitlist and B2B ranges, and the two levers to test first in your referral program.
Tools for these pages
Calculators and templates these pages link to, each with its formula or method on the page.
- A/B test sample size and duration calculator, with the formula
A 5% baseline needs 31,234 visitors per variant to detect a 10% relative lift at 5% significance and 80% power. Formula, inputs and run time.
- Growth experiment template with ICE scoring, a weekly cadence and a backlog you can copy
A growth experiment template gives each idea a hypothesis, an ICE score from 1 to 10, one owner and one metric, then ranks the backlog every week.
Elsewhere on Race to Scale
- Guides
How the mechanics work, with the evidence and the arithmetic.
5 pages - Tactics
Every tactic with the hours it takes, the days until a signal, and how strong the evidence is.
31 pages - Benchmarks
Split times for growth metrics, each with its source and its sample.
5 pages - Teardowns
Real pages redrawn as their structure, with what each part does.
3 pages - Tools
Calculators and templates, with the formula and a worked example on the page.
7 pages - Playbooks
Several tactics in order, with the timings between them.
7 pages - Cases
Short cited accounts of what a company ran and what happened.
43 pages - Digests
Public reports read for you, with their key numbers.
1 page - Agencies
Growth agencies for startups and small companies, A to Z, with facts checked on each agency's own pages.
- Voices
Posts from people who run growth that teach something specific, with our label and our take.
How these pages are made
Every factual sentence on a Race to Scale page is checked against a passage on a source page that was read for that page, and numbers are computed in code from those sources, not typed from memory. Each page lists its sources and links them where they are used.
Every page shows the day it was first published and, when a fact changes, the day it was updated; no date is set earlier than the day a page went up. The full method is on How we work.