Established model
The North Star metric
Popularised in growth practice by Sean Ellis and others · 2017
One measure chosen to capture the value customers get, used to align the whole company around growth that lasts.
Its place in the frameworkData Core›KPI management
What it does
The idea is to pick a single figure that rises only when customers are receiving what they came for — nights booked, messages sent, orders delivered — rather than revenue itself, which can grow for bad reasons. Supporting measures then describe the levers teams can pull to move it.
- Reach for it when
- When teams are each optimising their own figures and pulling against one another, and when the headline measure is revenue and nobody can say what customers are getting.
- Where it stops
- One number simplifies by leaving things out, and it is as open to gaming as any other target. The choice of metric is the whole difficulty, and the method does not make it for you.
Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown, Hacking Growth, Currency, 2017; the term is used widely in growth and product practice without a single origin.
Why it sits at KPI management
Choosing the few measures the organisation is actually run on, defining them so two people would agree, setting what good looks like, and reviewing them honestly.
A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:
- Choosing what to measureKaplan & Norton’s balanced scorecard, and the leading-against-lagging distinction that determines whether a measure permits a response.
- DefinitionsMeasurement-system practice on operational definitions, and the reproducibility requirement that separates a measure from an impression.
- Targets and thresholdsGoal-setting research on specific and demanding targets, and statistical process control on reacting to signal rather than noise.
- The reviewManagement-control research on review as the point where measurement becomes management rather than reporting.
What it touches elsewhere
Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at KPI management lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.
- Goal CoreA KPI without a goal behind it is a number; a goal without a measure is an intention.
- Data CollectionA measure that cannot be collected reliably is not a measure, whatever the definition says.
- Business CoreMost operational KPIs are process measures, and they belong to whoever owns the process.
- Time CoreThe review rhythm has to sit inside the organisation’s existing cycle rather than beside it.
Filed at the same place
These answer questions that arise at KPI management too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.
- The balanced scorecardMeasure across four perspectives at once, so financial results are read alongside what produces them.
- Goodhart’s lawWhen a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.
- AARRR (pirate metrics)Five stages of a customer’s life — acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue — each with its own measure.
Elsewhere in Data Core
These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.
All 166 models