Virtue Over Vanity Metrics
In the early years of a startup, the temptation is almost irresistible: chase downloads, users, headlines, funding announcements, and the dopamine hit of vanity metrics. Growth charts that look like hockey sticks. DAUs that make you feel like you’ve cracked product–market fit. But the truth is, many of those metrics are empty calories. They look good on a pitch deck, but they rarely nourish a business for the long haul.
What matters more, what truly endures, is the quiet work of building virtue into your company. Think of virtue not as morality in the abstract but as the combination of ethics, durability, and customer respect. Virtue is hard to quantify, but it is the foundation that allows a business to outlive the hype cycle.
Think in Years, Not Just Quarters
Many founders are conditioned to think in quarters, because that’s how investors and markets operate. Quarterly growth, quarterly targets, quarterly board updates. But a quarter is just 90 days. That’s barely enough time to understand if a product experiment has real traction or if a strategic change is working.
Instead, think in years. A year is long enough to understand whether you are building something meaningful, whether customers are sticking around, and whether the culture you’re creating is sustainable. A year forces patience. It gives you the perspective to avoid chasing temporary spikes that fade as quickly as they came.
Yes, the short-term matters. But companies that only think quarter to quarter rarely survive long enough to matter. Those who believe in years build foundations that let them thrive for decades.
Vanity Metrics vs. Virtuous Metrics
Vanity metrics are those numbers that look impressive but don’t tell you much about your business’s health. Think “total downloads,” “registered users,” “Github Stars,” “Social Media Likes,” or “press mentions.” They make you feel good, and they make investors nod during your pitch, but they’re shallow.
Virtuous metrics are much harder, not as glamorous to brag about. Still, they tell you if you’re actually building something that lasts: customer retention, NPS (Net Promoter Score), repeat purchases, willingness to pay, community trust, employee loyalty. They are slower to move, but they are the bedrock.
Here are examples of some of the companies that chose Virtue over Vanity;
Basecamp
Basecamp’s founders have consistently rejected the race for hypergrowth. They didn’t chase VC funding. They built a company that makes money by charging customers from day one. Their ethos is to create something sustainable, keep the team small, and avoid burning people out. Nearly two decades later, they’re still around, profitable, resilient, and with customers who trust them.
Patagonia
Yvon Chouinard never built Patagonia to be the biggest apparel company in the world. He built it to be the most responsible. The company is renowned for donating 1% of sales to environmental causes, pioneering sustainable supply chains, and once told customers “Don’t Buy This Jacket” to promote conscious consumption.
Apple
Apple, in its early days under Steve Jobs, was not chasing unit sales alone. Jobs was obsessed over durability, design integrity, and customer experience. In the long term, those virtues translated into one of the most valuable companies in history. While competitors boasted of “market share,” Apple built the world’s most loyal user base.
Costco
Costco is legendary for treating both customers and employees well. The company famously pays employees higher-than-average wages in retail and maintains razor-thin profit margins to give members the best prices. Costco’s virtue is in its trust model: customers pay for membership because they know Costco isn’t gaming them with hidden markups.
Nintendo
Nintendo didn’t chase the console war arms race of sheer graphics power. Instead, they leaned into fun, creativity, and durability. While others were battling for “spec supremacy,” Nintendo gave us the Wii, the Switch, and timeless franchises. They are over a century old now, proving that virtue in product philosophy can outlast generations.
Here are a few ideas to try and live by;
- Walk Backwards from Success. Picture yourself years ahead. What will you be proud of? Build backward from that, not forward from today’s hype.
- Measure What Matters. Don’t obsess over downloads or impressions. Focus on metrics that show whether people stick, trust, and pay.
- Build for Durability. Shortcuts are tempting. But fragile products, built on hacks, manipulative growth loops, or exploitative labor, rarely last.
- Embed Ethics into Decisions. Every choice, from pricing to hiring to customer experience, should align with your stated values. Your culture is not your pitch deck; it’s what you do when nobody is looking.
- Experiment, But Don’t Betray Your Core. Yes, pivot when needed. Yes, test growth ideas. But do not betray your principles for a quick spike in numbers. Customers (and employees) notice when you sell out.
A Founder’s Compass: Finding the North Star
Every startup needs a compass, a way to orient itself when the market shifts, when competitors outspend you, when investors pressure you to chase fast wins. That compass is your North Star.
A North Star is not just a metric like “monthly active users.” It’s a guiding purpose: the long-term value you are committed to delivering to customers and the principles you refuse to compromise on.
- For Patagonia, the North Star is protecting the planet.
- For Basecamp, it’s sustainable work and customer trust.
- For Apple, it was design integrity and user experience.
Your North Star is what tells you whether you are on course when everything else feels uncertain. It keeps you honest when the temptation of vanity metrics is loud.
As a founder, you will make countless decisions under pressure. Some will be bets that fail, some will be pivots, and some will surprise you with unexpected wins. But if you have a clear North Star, an unwavering compass, you will avoid drifting into the dangerous waters of building a company that looks successful but has no soul.
In the long run, customers, employees, and even investors gravitate toward companies with clarity of purpose. Your North Star is not just a story for branding; it is the reason you will still matter ten years from now.