The phenomenon of making and breaking personal New Year Resolutions is a well documented phenomenon but can you afford not to make and KEEP a New Year Resolution for your startup?

What do you need to do MORE of in 2017?

Perhaps it’s embracing a mindshift in order to identify and focus on the one thing that will make the biggest difference in your startup success – increased revenues and profitability.

After all, if you don’t have this as your goal, aren’t you just indulging your time and money in a lifestyle or hobby?

Ash Maurya argues in his ground breaking book Scaling Lean that there is only ever one measure of traction that supersedes all of the others and is really easy to identify, no matter what business you are in.

In fact, he teaches that when it comes to Traction, there are only three types of types of business model archetypes and each has it’s own Prime Metric.

1. Direct Business (SaaS, Coffee Shop or Consultancy) Prime Metric = Visitor to Customer conversion rate x Value
2. Multi-sided (Facebook or Google) Prime Metric = Derivative Assets such as Attention/Data created and sold
3. Marketplaces (Amazon, Uber) Prime Metric =  Number of Transactions Facilitated x Value

So what Prime Metric applies best to your startup and when are you going to start measuring it?

What do you need to do LESS of in 2017?

Perhaps you should STOP building an MVP and instead start creating a Minimum Revenue Product (MRP = the smallest thing you can create and sell)?

An MRP will enable you to really find out what your customers think and want – when you ask them to pay you for it.

Of course an MRP also enables you to improve your Prime Metric far sooner than you may think.

What do you really want?

If you want to find the quickest route to increasing your traction and getting investment for your startup, then the following process can help you to achieve that.

1. Establish Your Prime Metric and start measuring it from today
2. Create your Minimum Revenue Product
3. Look for ways to increase the value of each sale
4. Look for ways to increase the rate of sales

If there was one New Year Resolution you should create for your startup – it’s to focus on your Prime Metric every day.

Note: Here at The Startup Race we walk the talk and so our New Year Resolution is to also focus on our Prime Metric every day – helping more startups gain traction and get investment deals.

If you are interested in accessing our support and be one of those startups who get funding more quickly, please let me know.

Why wouldn’t you make this a New Year Resolution?

Perhaps you are comfortable indulging your time in cultivating soundbites for your fantasy startup rather than making money?

If so, remember that doing the same thing whilst expecting different results is madness.