WTF is activation and why should engineers care?

A good read about activation as an important metric for a software company. In essence, the goal is to measure when your potential user becomes a definite user—and this is usually not as simple as “when they sign up,” since a lot of users sign up but then drop off quickly.

It seems to relate closely to Krystal Higgins’ Better Onboarding: everything the user does in your product is onboarding (or un-onboarding), which means you have to draw a line somewhere to define what activation means. At what point are they onboarded enough that they’re likely to stick around? Higgins calls these points “key behaviors”—things the rest of your product is directing the user towards.

Mar 4, 2025 · No comments yet