---
title: Lean Analytics — the book | RGM® Glossary
url: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/lean-analytics/
updated: 2026-06-10
source_html: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/lean-analytics/
---

# Lean Analytics

/lin ˌænəˈlɪtɪks/proper noun

If you track everything, you learn nothing — one metric, one stage, one decision at a time.

Authors
:   Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz

Published
:   2013, O'Reilly

Core tool
:   One Metric That Matters (OMTM)

Scope
:   6 business models × 5 stages

## Forms & parts of speech

OMTM · acronym (from the book)

The single focus metric.

"What's our **OMTM** this quarter? Everything else is a vanity tab."

## What the book says

*Lean Analytics* supplies the measurement half the lean movement kept hand-waving: at any moment a startup should obsess over ONE metric that matters, chosen by business model and stage. The book maps six models (e-commerce, SaaS, mobile app, media, UGC, marketplace) against five stages (empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, scale) — each cell with its right metric and real benchmarks. A good metric is comparative, understandable, a ratio or rate, and BEHAVIOR-CHANGING — if knowing it wouldn't change what you do, stop tracking it.

## The ideas people quote

The OMTM as organizational focus, not dashboard minimalism; 'don't sell to the data — let the data sell to you'; vanity versus actionable redrawn as a test (what will you DO differently?); the stage gates — stickiness before virality before revenue, because growth poured into a leaky product is rented; and the draw-the-line discipline — set the target number BEFORE the experiment.

## How to read it now

It remains the best answer to dashboard sprawl — most teams' 40-widget analytics pages fail its behavior-changing test on sight. The benchmarks aged (2013 app economics are history) but the selection logic is timeless and maps cleanly onto modern North Star practice: the OMTM is the North Star metric with a stage discipline attached. Read it when your team can't answer 'what number are we trying to move this quarter?' in one sentence.

**Worked example.** A marketplace startup tracks 30 KPIs and argues about all of them. The Lean Analytics reset: stage check says stickiness (buyers return, sellers don't), so the OMTM becomes monthly active sellers — one number on the wall, target drawn in advance, every experiment judged against it. Three quarters of focused work later, seller retention clears the benchmark and the OMTM graduates to take rate. The other 29 metrics still exist — they just stopped running the meetings.

**Failure modes to watch.** Tracking everything and deciding nothing; choosing a revenue OMTM at the stickiness stage; and keeping a metric that fails the so-what test — if it changes no behavior, it's decoration.

## Synonyms & antonyms

### Synonyms

Lean AnalyticsOMTM

## Origin & history

Written for O'Reilly's Lean Series (Eric Ries, series editor) by Croll (Coradiant co-founder, Year One Labs) and Yoskovitz (Standout Jobs co-founder, later VarageSale and Highline Beta) — the accelerator's portfolio supplied the stage-by-stage evidence. Published March 2013.

Etymology: [source](https://leananalyticsbook.com/).

## Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

[View interest-over-time on Google Trends →](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=lean%20analytics&date=today%205-y)

## Common questions

Who wrote Lean Analytics?
:   Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz, published 2013 in O'Reilly's Lean Series with Eric Ries as series editor.

What is the One Metric That Matters?
:   The single metric your whole team obsesses over right now — chosen by business model and growth stage.

What makes a good metric?
:   Comparative, understandable, a ratio or rate, and behavior-changing — if it wouldn't change your actions, drop it.

## Related tools & calculators

- tool[Experiment planner](/tools/experiment-planner/)
- tool[Funnel drop-off analyzer](/tools/funnel-drop-off-analyzer/)

## Resources & people to follow

- book*Lean Analytics* — Croll & Yoskovitz (the subject)
- book*The Lean Startup* — Ries (the parent)
- referenceLeanAnalyticsBook.com

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

## Related training

- module[Growth marketing foundations](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/)

## Disciplines

Areas of marketing where lean analytics is a core concern:

[Growth strategy](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/)[Analytics](/training/marketing-analytics/)

## Read next

## Related terms

[North Star metric](/glossary/north-star-metric/)[The Lean Startup (book)](/glossary/the-lean-startup/)[Activation rate](/glossary/activation-rate/)[Retention](/glossary/retention/)[A/B test](/glossary/ab-test/)

## Sources

1. trends[Google Trends — "lean analytics"](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=lean%20analytics&date=today%205-y)