From Spready Metrics to Loops That Matter

Good morning —

While I Was Writing Today’s Signal // Noise:

Coming at you with some reggae boi energy this week—Bad Brains in dub mode.

From sound to signal—let’s get this baby rolling with what’s on my mind…

// The Signal

Last week was all about why every founder or operator needs a North Star metric—ideally a paired one. This week, I want to bury an old one of mine and talk about why I was moving away from classic funnel views—pushing prospects through Awareness > Purchase and tracking CAC:LTV in my fave spready’s—toward a more Product-Led Growth (PLG) mindset.

If you’re unfamiliar, PLG is about ditching linear funnels in favor of growth loops—and focusing on tighter, earlier indicators like time-to-value (TTV), P-1 retention, network activation, and loop-level paybacks. About 60% of SaaS companies already run a formal PLG motion, and 91% are gonna double down on their bets this year, according to ProductLed.

I wish I could say I’ve always had this mindset, 24/7. But back when I was just taking the reigns of CEO at Hampton, we grew fast...Like, really fast.

Hit 1,000+ paying members in two years with almost no paid media. That pace made things feel a little…insane. Most of our focus went toward keeping up with the operations of the biz - and then stuff like acceptance rate (qualified leads who passed our interview), post-interview conversion, and a “core group rating” (a member experience score) that often didn’t become meaningful until six months in.

It wasn’t until I caught my breath that I really started paying closer attention to time-to-value. We launched a short onboarding call during a member’s first two weeks: 15 minutes with our concierge team to talk about upcoming events, uncover business pain points, introduce potential industry peers, walk them through Slack.

It was a tiny move—but it marked a shift. Instead of obsessing over lead flow or conversion rates, I started thinking: Does this pull TTV forward? Not just, How many leads did we add? but How fast are we helping people get what they came for?

If you run a SaaS product, this might sound obvious: No sh*t—optimize loops.

But what if you’re running a media company? A platform? A people-first business?

Take Indie Hackers, as a good example. No freemium software. No widgets. Just a forum, content, and community. And yet they found that by nudging new members to post an intro within their first 7 days (and complete a few other small actions), they lifted activation by 20%. And then every user post hits the homepage or their Twitter feed, which then pulls in new traffic, which then brings in more members for them. That’s a loop. And it’s built from a PLG perspective.

The lesson: even people or content businesses can use PLG frameworks to help them build and track and engage better.

Try this in the next 30 days

1. Map your loop. List every step where users create value—not just consume it.

2. Measure TTV to that step. If it takes more than 24 hours or a few da, you’re likely leaking value.

3. Pick the slowest link. Assign a squad to shave 20% of friction by July 1.

🔖 The Blog Round

Yo Mommas, Dads, and anyone else raising tiny humans:

This one’s about a short book I read that inspired us to start something called “Family Board Meetings”—a name our kids immediately rejected. So we rebranded it “Family Fun Day” (still sounds like a 1980s trashy waterpark, but whatevs).

If you’ve got kids and want to carve out more real 1:1 time, there are a few decent nuggets in this blog post I wrote.

👀 A few Jawns to Check Out

📰 Fresh POV | AI agents are already shopping for us—this breakdown nails how fast we’re moving from clicks to delegation. This is great read from Digital Native if you're building anything consumer-facing.

📕 Great post | By one of my all-time fave biz writers, Galloway talks about private schools, early internships, family connections—it’s not just anecdotal. This post - Rich Kids - shows how privilege compounds, and what that means for the rest of us.

🔥 Hot take | If you're hiring engineers and still handing out the same take-home project from 2020…you might be getting duped. Everybody’s gaming the system, and you’d be well-served to check out this hot take from The Pragmatic Engineer, who details what’s working (and what’s broken).

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Have a good weekend, you animals.

Love yous.

Jordan