In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Tom Blomfield discusses one of the most important elements of running any startup: metrics! Tom shares what key metrics to track and how to use them to make the best decisions for your company. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 00:21 - Importance of Metrics 01:16 - Pre-launch Metrics 02:23 - Metric Overload Caution 03:17 - Key Metrics Selection 04:54 - Consistency in Metrics 07:13 - Investor Update Metrics 09:17 - Retention's Significance 13:13 - B2B SaaS: Net Dollar Retention 16:50 - Cruciality of Gross Margin 21:10 - Challenges of Negative Margin Scaling 22:18 - Metrics Recap 22:42 - Final Thoughts 23:24 - Outro