The easy answer isn't the right one
When you're building an early-stage product, it's tempting to define success in simple terms. Signups. Logins. Feature adoption. Those numbers feel good because they're easy to measure.
But if I'm being real, none of that is what actually matters. Certainly not to our customers.
Yirla exists to help B2B demand gen teams make better, faster decisions. So the only success metric that counts is are our first customers actually making better decisions because of us?
What "wild success" looks like
Our customers have been helping us to define what "wild success" looks like and it comes down to 3-things.
- Speed of decisions. Every demand gen leader we've talked with is spending 20 - 50% of their time pulling data together before they can even start analyzing it. If Yirla cuts that cycle from days to minutes, that's a win.
- Confidence in those decisions. Anyone can make a decision, but it takes data to make the right decision. When our customers feel more confident walking into budget conversations, pipeline reviews, or board meetings, that's a win.
- Performance improvements that compound. Faster, more confident decisions should lead to better outcomes over time. More efficient spend. Better pipeline quality. Clearer attribution. These are the downstream effects we're building toward, but we are seeing them happen now. Win!
How I'm holding myself accountable
We aren't building Yirla in a vacuum. That would be silly in this day and age. Here is the approach:
- Regular check-ins with every early customer. Limited to no demo or new feature discussion, just simple conversations about whether we're changing how they work.
- Asking the uncomfortable questions. Would you miss Yirla if it went away tomorrow? If the answer is no, we have work to do. Thankfully we've heard a lot of yes'.
- Building in public. Sharing what I'm learning, the wins and the misses, so that the broader demand gen community can hold me to it.
What would success look like for you?
This isn't a rhetorical question. If you're running demand gen for a B2B company or agency and you could redesign how you interact with your performance data from scratch, what does that look like?
I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a note or sign up to try Yirla and tell me what you think.
The first 10 customers aren't just users. They're co-builders. And I want to make sure we're building toward something that actually matters.