Pick a North Star metric

To: CEO, Growth Lead From: Head of Product Subject: Aligning on Simmer’s North Star Metric

We are currently debating whether Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Monthly Active Users (MAU) should be our North Star metric. Both capture critical truths: we need top-of-funnel scale (MAU), and we need to build a sustainable business (MRR).

However, I recommend we adopt neither. Instead, our North Star should be Weekly Active Cooks (WAC): the number of users who complete at least two recipes in Cook Mode per week.

Why MRR and MAU Fall Short

A great North Star measures the exact moment a user realizes core value, which in turn acts as a leading indicator of revenue.

MAU is too broad and easily inflated. Currently, 68% of our 2.1M MAUs are search-driven browsers who read one recipe and leave; only 4% of them retain at month six. Furthermore, last year’s push notification test proved that chasing MAU is dangerous: we grew MAU by 6%, but produced zero lift in actual cooking while doubling our uninstall rate. Optimizing for MAU incentivizes low-intent traffic.

MRR is a lagging indicator. It measures value captured, not value delivered. You cannot easily rally an engineering or design squad around "increase MRR" without them resorting to aggressive paywalls that might hurt long-term retention.

Why "Weekly Active Cooks" (2+ Completions) Wins

Cooking in Cook Mode is the undeniable heart of Simmer. Our 12-month cohort data proves that WAC bridges the gap between MAU and MRR: 1. It drives retention: Users who hit the 2x/week Cook Mode threshold have a massive 61% retention rate at month six. (By contrast, users who just save recipes retain at only 9%). 2. It drives revenue: 82% of our new Simmer Plus subscribers cooked at least three recipes in Cook Mode during their first two weeks.

If we get users to cook with us twice a week, retention and MRR will naturally follow. Note that because Cook Mode timers are a Simmer Plus feature for most recipes, our free tier must allow enough Cook Mode access (via free-tier recipes or a trial) for new users to hit this magic threshold before hitting a paywall.

Input Metrics for Teams to Own

To move WAC, we can break the user journey into four actionable input metrics for our product squads:

1. Acquisition/Onboarding Squad — First-Cook Activation Rate: The percentage of new users who complete 1+ recipe in Cook Mode within 7 days of signup.
2. Core Experience Squad — Save-to-Cook Conversion Rate: Savers average four recipes a week, but rarely cook them (9% retention). We must build bridges—like smart ingredient lists or timely reminders—that turn aspirational "Savers" into "Cooks."
3. Habit/Retention Squad — Weekly Meal Plan Adoption: Weekly planners retain at 54%, yet only 7% of MAUs have ever planned a week. Getting users to plan their week is the surest way to get them cooking 2+ times a week.
4. Monetization Squad — Cook-Qualified Paywall Conversion: The conversion rate of free users who hit the "3 cooks in 14 days" threshold into Simmer Plus subscribers.

Guardrails Against Gaming

Any metric can be gamed. To ensure teams drive genuine value rather than manipulating the numbers, we will pair our North Star with three strict guardrails:

• Minimum Time-in-Cook-Mode: Because a "cook" is logged at the final step, a team could game WAC by making steps shorter or prompting users to swipe through rapidly. We will only count completions where the user spends a realistic minimum duration (e.g., >10 minutes) in Cook Mode.
• Uninstall & Notification Opt-Out Rates: To prevent another notification backfire, any growth experiments that spike uninstalls or push opt-outs above baseline will be automatically rolled back.
• Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate: If we give away too much free Cook Mode access to juice WAC, we might cannibalize Simmer Plus. MRR growth and conversion rates will serve as our ultimate business health check.

By focusing on Weekly Active Cooks, Growth gets an engagement metric that actually retains, and the business gets a predictable engine for MRR.

Simmer's North Star: Weekly Active Cooks

To: [CEO], [Growth Lead] From: Head of Product

Recommendation

Our North Star should be Weekly Active Cooks: users who complete two or more recipes in Cook Mode in a given week.

Neither MRR nor MAU is wrong as something to watch. But neither works well as the one number every team steers by. Weekly Active Cooks sits between them. It is the behaviour that best predicts both retention and revenue, and teams can move it week to week.

Why not MRR

MRR is the outcome we're ultimately accountable for, and it stays on the board. As a North Star, it has two problems.

• It lags. Revenue moves after behaviour has already changed, so teams learn too late whether their work helped.
• Most teams can't touch it directly. The levers that move MRR fastest are pricing, paywalls and discounting. Those can lift revenue in the short term while hurting the habit that sustains it.

The behaviour that comes before revenue is cooking. 82% of new subscribers cooked at least three recipes in Cook Mode in their first two weeks.

Why not MAU

MAU measures reach, and reach matters. But our own data shows it rewards the wrong things.

• Most of it doesn't stick. 68% of monthly actives only browse: they arrive from search, read one recipe and leave. Only 4% of them are still active at month 6.
• It's easy to inflate. Last year's daily push notification raised MAU by 6%. Uninstalls doubled, and Cook Mode completions didn't change. MAU went up while the business got slightly worse.

Why Weekly Active Cooks

• It predicts retention. 61% of users who cook twice a week are still active at month 6. That is the strongest retention signal we have, ahead of weekly planners (54%), savers who never cook (9%) and browse-only users (4%).
• It predicts revenue. Cooking comes before subscribing for most new subscribers.
• It reflects real value. Someone who cooked dinner with Simmer got what we promise.
• It's weekly. Teams get feedback fast enough to iterate.

A caveat: this evidence is correlational. People who cook may simply be more committed to begin with. Before we fully commit, I propose a holdout test of one cook-encouraging change to confirm that causing cooking improves retention. We also need to establish the current baseline, which we don't track today.

Input metrics teams can own

1. Browse-to-cook conversion (owner: Growth/SEO). The share of search visitors who start Cook Mode in that visit or return within seven days. Our biggest pool of users is the 68% who browse, and this turns reach into habit. It also gives the growth team a version of the audience goal that counts.
2. New-user activation (owner: Onboarding). The share of new users who cook three recipes in their first 14 days. This mirrors the path most subscribers took.
3. Save-to-cook rate (owner: Recipe/Discovery). The share of saved recipes cooked within 14 days. Savers save four recipes a week, but saving alone retains only 9% of them. Reminders, shopping lists and "cook what you saved" features should close this gap.
4. Weekly planning adoption (owner: Meal Planning). The share of actives who plan a week of meals. Only 7% have ever done it, yet planners retain at 54%. Planning is also a Plus feature, so it has a direct line to revenue.

Guardrails

• MRR and free-to-paid conversion, reviewed monthly. If Weekly Active Cooks rises but conversion falls, we may be giving away too much free.
• Uninstall rate and notification opt-outs. Any engagement push that worsens these gets reviewed, given what happened with the daily notification.
• Cook Mode completion quality. We currently log a cook when someone reaches the last step, which is easy to tap through. We should only count completions with plausible time spent on the steps. A share of completions should also show supporting signals, such as timers used or the recipe rated or repeated.
• Six-month retention by cohort. This is the ultimate check that more cooks means more lasting users.
• MAU, tracked but not targeted. If reach collapses, the funnel feeding Weekly Active Cooks dries up.

Next steps

If you both agree, we will:

• instrument the metric and the quality filter,
• publish a baseline within three weeks,
• run the causal test, and
• set first-half targets for each input metric with their owning teams.

Recommendation: optimize for weekly cooking, not revenue or visits

Our North Star should be Weekly Engaged Cooks: the number of unique users who complete at least two recipe-cooking sessions in Cook Mode within a rolling seven-day period. Count each person once, across free and paid users.

Simmer’s core promise is helping people make meals—not merely find recipes. This metric captures users repeatedly receiving that value.

The evidence points toward cooking: - Users cooking at least twice a week have 61% month-six retention, versus 9% for save-only users and 4% for browse-only users. - 82% of new subscribers cooked at least three recipes in their first two weeks. - Weekly planners also retain well, at 54%, but planning has reached only a small minority of users. It should support cooking, not define value for everyone.

These are associations, not proof that pushing users across a threshold causes retention or subscription. They are nevertheless our strongest starting evidence; we should test whether product changes that increase genuine cooking also improve those outcomes.

Why not MRR or MAU?

To our CEO: MRR remains a critical business outcome. But as the North Star, it could reward price increases or aggressive paywalls even while fewer people get value. Weekly cooking gives teams a customer-value objective with a plausible connection to durable revenue.

To our growth lead: MAU measures reach, but treats a one-recipe search visitor like a habitual cook. Our notification experiment demonstrates the danger: MAU rose 6%, uninstalls doubled, and cooking completions stayed flat. That was more activity, not more value.

Four input metrics teams can own

These are drivers, not independent targets to maximize at any cost. Track their absolute user counts alongside rates so teams cannot improve percentages simply by shrinking eligibility.

Guardrails against gaming

1. Measure cooking, not button presses. Reaching the last step is a proxy, not proof of a cooked meal. Exclude automated activity and duplicate completion events. Audit suspicious completion patterns and periodically validate the proxy through user research. Don’t reward tapping through steps, auto-completion, or cosmetic changes to logging.

2. Protect the whole experience. Monitor uninstalls, notification opt-outs, complaints, and cooking satisfaction. Reject “growth” that increases qualifying activity through nagging while materially worsening these measures. Preserve browse-only usefulness; not every visitor needs to become a tracked cook.

3. Require durable gains. Evaluate experiments on sustained weekly cooking and cohort retention, not just a short-lived threshold crossing. Keep metric definitions stable and report results separately for new, existing, free, and paid users.

4. Keep economics visible. Review MRR, paid conversion, subscriber churn, and contribution margin alongside the North Star. More cooking is not enough if it undermines a sustainable business.

Bottom line: MAU tells us who arrived; MRR tells us what we earned. Weekly Engaged Cooks tells us whether Simmer is becoming useful enough to return to—and pay for.