Growth-stage companies have figured out how to solve a problem for their users. Of course, they'll keep investing in the product, but the main focus is to grow the business. This is why they should mostly focus on the Acquisition and Referral stages of the AARRR funnel.
There are 2 ways for you to grow: find channels that can generate a steady number of leads, and turn existing users into advocates that will refer your product to their friends and colleagues.
Focus areas:
Key questions:
Do we have sustainable growth channels?
Is our onboarding funnel efficient?
Can we turn happy users into advocates?
Are we sustaining the quality of the product?
Example of Growth Stage Startup OKRs
You'll find below an example built around a fictitious company. Your OKRs should move from quarter to quarter and map to your company's reality – that's why we thought it's best to illustrate things as a case study that you can take inspiration from.
Scenario
Askawoof is a startup building a platform to help companies run customer satisfaction surveys. They successfully launched their product and got great initial feedback. Now they're looking for ways to accelerate their growth.
General advice
It's often useful to pair Key Results that can check one another for a specific Objective. You might push your team to adopt extreme tactics to grow the business if you only mention new leads and signups (spend too much, reduce leads quality...).
A good practice is to add control Key Results to make sure keep that your business stays healthy. In this example, the goals around growth are balanced with some other KRs related to costs and retention.
Their Startup OKRs
Lead gen accelerates through network effects
Free plans users help us generate 500 leads through advertising in surveys
25% of survey-generated leads turn into active users
More OKR templates →
We have a sustainable growth engine
1K people are using our platform every week
Weekly signups increase from 20 to 150
8-week retention rate stays above 30%
Cost per Acquisition stays under $30
More OKR templates →
How to track your OKRs?
There are many options available out there but we're generally seeing 2 categories of products emerging.
For teams getting started: Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are a great way to get started with OKRs. They're flexible and familiar, and they reduce the amount of learning when you're still getting comfortable with the Objectives and Key Results process.
But, you'll probably start to feel some friction as adoption grows. The lack of check-ins workflows and trends makes it hard for spreadsheet to be a long-term solution for OKRs.
For seasoned OKRs team: OKRs-tracking software

If you're looking to simplify your OKRs process, then a dedicated goal-tracking platform is best to keep track of your OKRs at scale.
A platform like Tability will automate the check-ins reminders, provide progress charts and dashboards out of the box, and make the whole experience more collaborative.
Focus tip:
Frequent check-ins are the key to staying on track with your OKRs. Checking progress early and often will tell you what you should and shouldn't focus on. Make check-ins a part of your weekly ritual with Tability →
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What other metrics can you use for your startup?
If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are some example of metrics that can be relevant for your Key Results.
Number of leads
How many new users sign up for your product every day/week/month?
Activation rate
How many signups turn into active users?
Engagement
How do people interact with your content (it can be anything, from visits to specific sections to conversations in Intercom…)
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost Per Acquisition is the cost of acquiring a non-paying user.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer Acquisition Cost is the cost of acquiring a paying customer.
Retention rate
How many users return to our product every day/week/month?
Conversion rate
How many users turn into paid customers?
Monthly Recurring Revenues (MRR)
How much revenue do we generate every month from our users?
Churn
What's the percentage of customers that drops every month?
Viral coefficient
How many new users does one user generate (by inviting friends, colleagues, referrals...)?