TL;DR I set a Q2 goal of 100 email subscribers, looked up one morning to find 266, and still couldn’t tell you if I hit it. The problem wasn’t the number. It was that I never said what one subscriber actually was. A goal needs a counting rule: the unit, the source of truth, and the read date. Write those three down before you start, or you’ll cross your own finish line without knowing it.
In April, I aimed to reach 100 email subscribers for this blog by the end of the quarter. LinkedIn showed 266, so I’ve exceeded that, right?. I should have finalized the goal, acknowledged the achievement, and moved forward.
But I couldn’t. Because I didn’t actually know what I was looking at.
I needed to clarify whether the 266 individuals were part of an email list that I own and can export tomorrow, or if they were followers of a LinkedIn newsletter, which is a figure that the platform maintains and I pay to access. Some of these individuals belonged to one group, while others belonged to the other. I had never decided which group I should consider as valid. Therefore, although I set a goal and exceeded it, I couldn’t determine if I had truly achieved success.
That is a worse feeling than missing. When you miss, at least you know where you stand.
The number was never the problem.
What I realized was that I wasn’t facing a measurement problem, but rather a definition problem, even though I had been referring to it as a goal all along.
“Having ‘100 email subscribers’ sounds impressive, right? But it’s important to remember that just having a number doesn’t give you the full picture. To really gauge my success, I need not only that number but also a clear way to measure it. I love the excitement around the number, but I think it’s super important to set up a solid measurement system so I can truly grasp my progress and the impact I’m making!
Eric Ries, who wrote The Lean Startup, has a name for the kind of number that makes you feel good without telling you anything: a vanity metric. His point usually concerns totals that only go up, like cumulative sign-ups. Mine was a quieter version. My number wasn’t vanity. It was just undefined. An undefined number does the same thing as a vanity metric. It lets you feel progress you can’t actually act on.
I’ve noticed a common pattern in product work that I’ve also fallen into myself. Sometimes a team decides to focus on “improving activation,” a founder tells the board they’re aiming for “1,000 users,” and someone sets an OKR to “grow the pipeline.” Everyone’s on board, but three months later, the team is debating whether they actually met the goal. It turns out that three different people had different ideas of what success looked like, and nobody realized that until the deadline was looming!
To keep things running smoothly, I’ve started writing every goal with a clear counting rule. I make sure it has three parts and take the time to define them before I dive into the work, rather than figuring them out afterward. It’s made a world of difference!
So I started writing every goal with a counting rule. Three parts. I do it before I start chasing the number, not after.
The unit: what counts as one?
Identify the specific item rather than its category; focus on the exact unit.
Think of “Subscriber” as a broad category, while “a person who confirmed their double opt-in on my list and can be exported to a CSV” is a specific type within that category. It seems pretty clear at first, but it gets interesting when you realize that things like LinkedIn followers, free tool downloads, and newsletter signups all fit under that same umbrella. They’re all labeled “subscribers,” but they actually represent different kinds of interactions!
Here is a test you can run: ask yourself, can a stranger understand this unit without needing to ask any questions? If not, it might not be well-defined yet. For my subscribers, someone might wonder, “Do LinkedIn followers count?” That kind of question shows there might be some confusion. It’s really helpful to clarify the definition right from the start! Being clear is important since misunderstandings can crop up later. If the unit isn’t defined well at the beginning of the quarter, it could lead to disagreements down the line. Plus, trying to redefine it after seeing the numbers can be tempting, but that might make it look more successful than it really is, often without anyone even noticing!
The source of truth: which system owns the number?
Stick to one system for keeping track of the count, just one! If you find that two dashboards can both answer the same question, it might mean we don’t have a clear metric yet, which could lead to some confusion down the line. Let’s aim for clarity!
I had my subscribers spread across two different platforms: Sender.net took care of my owned list, while LinkedIn kept track of my follower count. Both were real and could definitely be called “subscribers” in a casual sense. However, I never picked one platform as my main source for my goals, which meant that my focus was kind of linked to both but not really grounded in either. It was a bit of a balancing act!
Choose a specific system and state your goal clearly! For example, saying “I want to have 100 confirmed contacts in Sender.net” is a great way to set a clear and easy-to-understand target. On the other hand, “100 subscribers” can be a bit vague and open to interpretation. Even though both phrases are about the same length, the first one really makes it clear when you’ve achieved your goal.
The size of your team really affects how you handle numbers and goals. A solo founder can juggle a couple of figures in their mind and still feel the pressure. But when you’re part of a team, things change! For example, with six people, each person tends to focus on the dashboard that relates to their own tasks, and that’s totally okay. However, this can sometimes make the main goal feel a bit vague to everyone. It’s important to find a way to keep everyone aligned!
The read date: when do you check, and what ends it?
Lastly, take a moment to decide when you’ll check your progress and what number will indicate you’ve reached your goal. Remember, if you don’t set a specific time to review it, you might only notice your progress now and then, like on a Saturday, while casually checking a dashboard. Planning ahead will help you stay on track and celebrate your achievements!
The read date is helpful for two main reasons! First, it keeps you from checking too often, which can turn a quarterly goal into daily stress. Plus, it helps you avoid forgetting to celebrate your achievements. Without a specific time set to recognize your progress, you might leave a completed goal unnoticed for weeks. I learned this the hard way. I hit the 100 milestone in May, but didn’t realize it until June because I hadn’t picked a day to celebrate. Setting that time is super important!
I’ll jot it down: “Let’s check the Sender.net count on the last Friday of the quarter. If it hits 100 or more, we’ve reached our goal!” Now I have a clear target to aim for, and that makes it feel achievable. After all, a goal that seems impossible isn’t really a goal; it’s more of a direction. Directions are great, but let’s not put a number on them and expect to know when we’ve arrived.
This is the same issue I wrote about in the priority you actually set is the one you put a date on. When a decision doesn’t have a date, it tends to get overlooked. Similarly, a goal without a deadline can be hard to track. The calendar is a great tool for turning our intentions into reality or, unfortunately, letting them slip away.
What this changes for my own goal
So I rewrote it. Not “100 email subscribers.” Instead: “100 confirmed contacts on the owned list in Sender.net, read on the last Friday of Q2, LinkedIn followers excluded.”
Here’s a bit of an awkward truth: in the past, I felt great at 266 subscribers and thought I was winning! But with the updated wording, I realize I might not even hit 100 yet, since a big part of that 266 came from LinkedIn, which I’ve decided to exclude. Honestly, I don’t even know my current number on the owned list as I’m writing this, and that’s really the main point. The honest version of my goal might show that I still have work to do, while the vague version lets me celebrate something that I can’t fully count. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s all part of the journey!
A goal exists to change what I do this week, and a number I can’t trust won’t change anything.
FAQ
What is a counting rule? It’s the definition that turns a number into a metric. Three parts: the unit (what counts as one), the source of truth (which single system holds the count), and the read date (when you check and what value closes it). Write all three before you start chasing the number.
How is this different from a vanity metric? A vanity metric is a real, well-defined number that doesn’t tell you what to do next, like cumulative signups that only go up. An undefined metric is worse in a quieter way. It might be actionable, but you can’t trust it, because nobody agreed on what it counts. The counting rule fixes the second problem. Choosing the right number to begin with fixes the first.
Isn’t this overkill for a small team or a solo project? It’s three sentences written once at the start. The cost is tiny, and it’s front-loaded. The cost of skipping it shows up later, at the worst time, when the number is due, and you can’t say whether you hit it. Small teams feel this less only because they can hold two definitions in their head. The moment a second person reads the goal, the ambiguity becomes a meeting.
Who should own the counting rule? Whoever owns the goal, if you set it, you define how it’s counted. Don’t outsource the unit to a dashboard’s default view, because the dashboard was built to answer someone else’s question, not yours.
What’s the one thing I should do this week? Take your most important current goal and ask: could a stranger count this without asking me anything? If not, rewrite it with a unit, a source of truth, and a read date. It takes five minutes, and it will probably change what the goal actually says.
What I’m doing this week
I’m going through my three Q2 goals and adding a counting rule to each. The subscriber one already exposed a soft target hiding behind a hard-looking number, so I assume the other two have the same problem, and I just haven’t looked yet.
And I’m pulling my real owned-list count, the one I’ve been avoiding, because the version of the goal that might tell me I’m not done yet is the only version worth keeping. If you set a goal this quarter and it still has a number without a rule attached, you’re in the same spot I was in on that Saturday. Pick the unit. Name the system. Set the date. Then you’ll actually know when you’ve won, which is the only reason to keep score at all.
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