It's amazingly difficult to find the right metric when you are still at the MVP level.
However, once the system has proven itself, it's only a matter of optimization.
I think it's one (amongst many) reason why so many startups fail at the MVP stage. Looking for metrics at that stage is just speculation; optimizing for them is a complete waste of time. The focus of the MVP is to build a proven system without getting lost (minimal waste of time/effort/resources).
You're right that optimizing for metrics too early is a mistake. I do think, though, that there are good metrics to focus on at the MVP stage. Talking to users is generally a pretty good one.
Kind of reminds me of visiting photo gear forums. People get into crazy discussions about megapixels, resolution, dynamic range, shot noise, and everything but actually taking pictures. "Pixel peeping" is a far cry from using the gear for its intended purpose.
Fundraising is like a camera, it's a tool, a means to accomplish something. A great photographer can do amazing things with a cheap camera. Achievement is measured only by the images produced, not the gear used in making them.
Analogously "progress" is measured by what an enterprise produces, not how much money was raised. In short, having tools is not the same as using them, especially using them well.
IOW having tools is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of making progress.
Goals are different than objectives. We can expend so much time and effort working to acquire money (objective) to be able to buy the tools we need (objective) to do something (goal), that we don't have enough left to actually use the tools to actually do the thing.
A lot of people have basements, garages, or closets full of tools that they've obtained for various things but never really used. It happens in businesses too. And now they have sunk costs, so they need more money.
I really love these, I spend some of my time trying to help groups come out of my alma mater with working startups and it's frustrating how hard it is to get these points across to virtually all new founders, we've all been there and know what it's like chasing the shiny object.
I understand what you are saying on the last point, there's no silver bullet and you better come in ready to really work, but it has to constitute progress when you get in YC. Anything that you do to improve your expected value by a multiple is progress, this includes getting into YC (specifically), recruiting a stellar co-founder or landing the perfect investment partner.
Press/Retweets in and of themselves aren't progress but they can be a good indicator of it (and also a poor indicator). I've had many conversations which have turned into sales that included that person talking about how they've been seeing my site everywhere these days.
Eyeballs/Uniques are precisely why the advertising I sell is done on a monthly basis. Either the advertiser will like the results of the campaign by tracking the activity on their site, or they won't.
Honestly who considers these their primary goals? Every company I've interviewed / interacted with has focus on real numbers or a sense of why something ties to underlying strategy. Most likely I'm suffering from selection bias, but honestly curious what companies run like this.
This must be directed at first time, earliest stage founders.
Probably usually novice founders who think they too can pull off the launch -> go viral -> fundraise -> scale -> monetise/exit trick that rarely works but has worked for some of the biggest successes (eg YouTube).
I fell for it.
These days, most of the companies doing well enough to offer you a job are too smart for that.
But I still hear of "well credentialed" founders who succeeded that way in the 90s or 2000s, trying to do it again and failing miserably - burning 8-figure sums of money in the process because to VC's they're "proven" - eg Color.
That's a good way of putting it, I think. Revenue is obviously very important, but there are other values that an enterprise may be concerned with as well.
