Making Metrics Work for Growth-Stage Companies
What I’ve learned helping organisations go from dashboards to real decisions
Across the companies I’ve worked with, from early-stage startups to family-run SMEs and fast-growing professional service firms, one theme keeps coming up when it comes to operations:
Everyone wants better visibility.
Very few are actually tracking the right things to get it.
In theory, KPIs are supposed to create clarity. In practice, they often do the opposite. I’ve seen dashboards full of colour-coded charts that look impressive… but don’t spark any decisions. Weekly reports that track 25 metrics - 20 of which haven’t changed in months. And leadership teams unsure whether they’re doing well or just coasting.
In one project, I worked with a company that was delivering great work for customers, but struggling to grow. Their team was stretched, systems were lagging, and morale was slipping. They had tons of data, but none of it helped explain WHY the business felt like it was stalling. After initial conversations and analyses, we realised they were tracking outputs, not bottlenecks which made it difficult to fix root causes and drivers of impact.
Once we shifted the focus by identifying friction points, mapping leading indicators of customer satisfaction, and measuring how long it took to resolve issues, things started to change. The team could make decisions faster, the leader felt clearer, and we could actually see momentum
Good metrics does not mean Good strategy
I’ve seen it with scaling founders, inherited businesses, even mission-driven orgs: they often track what’s easiest to measure or what they think they’re supposed to track. But growth-stage businesses need more than generic KPIs e.g. burn rate, utilisation rate, margins. You need metrics that help you:
See early warning signs before things break
Make trade-offs based on real impact
Align teams toward a shared picture of progress
A question I always come back to is
What is this metric helping us do differently?
I like this more than “Is this a good KPI?” because it forces clarity of purpose. Is it guiding a decision, showing a shift, or highlighting a gap? If not, it might just be noise.
Here’s how I usually approach this in projects:
Start with outcomes: Revenue per client. Churn. Conversion time. Employee retention. You can always build from there.
Work backwards to find indicators: What inputs drive these outcomes? What signals show you’re on track before lagging indicators show up?
Make it visible and ownable: A metric buried in a spreadsheet doesn’t change behaviour. One that’s reviewed regularly by the right people and actually acted on, does.
The right KPIs create clarity, alignment, and momentum
In one project, I worked with a start up that had grown quickly (new hires, new clients, new opportunities), but their internal alignment had not kept pace. Every team had a slightly different idea of what success looked like. Ops meetings turned into data debates, and it was hard to tell whether performance was improving or just getting busier.
We stripped things back and introduced a simple KPI framework across the company. Just three categories:
Client value (e.g. NPS, repeat usage, referrals)
Team efficiency (e.g. turnaround time, delivery reliability)
Strategic growth (e.g. time spent testing new features or markets)
Each team chose one clear, relevant metric from each bucket. That small shift changed everything. Suddenly, conversations weren’t about whose numbers were “right” — they were about what levers to pull to improve the numbers. The leadership team got a clear picture of progress. Teams felt more ownership, because the metrics actually reflected their work and priorities.
It didn’t require a new system, just a mindset shift. And it helped the start up scale with much more intention.
Final thoughts: Metrics should evolve with the business (and with times!)
One of the biggest mistakes I see is treating KPIs as fixed. As your company evolves, so should what you measure. Early on, speed might matter more than profit. Later, quality or consistency might take the lead.
So if you’re running a growing company, and your metrics feel like they’re not telling you much… trust that instinct. Step back, and redefine what success looks like before you try to measure it.
In the growth-stage, metrics aren’t just about quality control, they are about clarity to make better decisions, and that is what drives real momentum.
I’d love to hear how others are navigating this (calling all operators, founders, and advisors) What metrics have actually helped you grow? What did you stop tracking?
Leave a comment or message me, let’s compare notes!
Till we meet next week,
Nareen