See How Customers Actually Use Your Product

The Problem with Aggregate User Metrics00:09

One of the biggest mistakes founders make is relying on aggregate user metrics instead of understanding how any individual users use their product. Cohort retention curves are the best tool to figure out if people keep using your product. However, these curves do not reveal how users are actually using the product, which features they interact with, the frequency of use, or the pacing of usage. Most founders ignore this information, but it is the most important signal to determine if a product has been built that people want.

Founders need to look at what individual users are doing. Even with 10 or 20 users, tailing logs and watching every event is challenging. Aggregate data such as DAUs or MAUs lump all users together, making it impossible to understand individual behavior. With growth, these graphs tend to trend up and to the right even if users are not actually enjoying the product.

Introducing the Dot Plot01:30

A dot plot is a tool that allows understanding of individual users while also providing a big picture view of product performance. The visualization is a two-dimensional grid similar to a spreadsheet with rows and columns. Each row represents one individual user. Every column represents a time period, typically days depending on the nature of the product.

The idea is to put dots in each cell representing an event that users perform that indicates value in the product. Examples include sharing a photo in a photo app, listening to a song in a music app, or processing an invoice in a B2B invoice processing product. A dot is placed for each day that each user uses the product.