north-star-metric

What it is

North Star Metric is a product management skill that helps define a single, customer-centric KPI reflecting the value customers get from a product. It serves as a leading indicator of long-term business success. The skill starts by classifying the business into one of three games: Attention (time spent in product, like Facebook, Spotify, YouTube), Transaction (transaction volume, like Amazon, Uber, Airbnb), or Productivity (work completion efficiency, like Canva, Dropbox, Notion). The skill clearly distinguishes what a North Star Metric is not: it is not multiple metrics, not revenue or LTV, not OKRs, and not strategy. Once a candidate metric is identified, it is validated against seven criteria: easy to understand, customer-centric, sustainable value, vision alignment, quantitative, actionable, and leading indicator. A metric that fails any criterion should be reconsidered. Supporting the North Star are 3-5 input metrics that are easier to move in the short term and directly drive the North Star outcome. The skill produces a metrics constellation -- the North Star surrounded by its input metrics -- that gives teams both a long-term direction and actionable short-term levers. This framework is part of the pm-marketing-growth plugin and can be invoked via the /north-star command.

Who it's for

• product managers
• startup founders
• growth teams
• data analysts

Requirements

Setup

1. Step 1

   bashCopy

   claude plugin marketplace add phuryn/pm-skills

2. Step 2

   bashCopy

   claude plugin install pm-marketing-growth@pm-skills

Examples

/north-star

Pros & cons