15 customisable OKR examples for Startup
What are Startup OKRs?
The OKR acronym stands for Objectives and Key Results. It's a goal-setting framework that was introduced at Intel by Andy Grove in the 70s, and it became popular after John Doerr introduced it to Google in the 90s. OKRs helps teams has a shared language to set ambitious goals and track progress towards them.
Crafting effective OKRs can be challenging, particularly for beginners. Emphasizing outcomes rather than projects should be the core of your planning.
We have a collection of OKRs examples for Startup to give you some inspiration. You can use any of the templates below as a starting point for your OKRs.
If you want to learn more about the framework, you can read our OKR guide online.
Building your own Startup OKRs with AI
While we have some examples available, it's likely that you'll have specific scenarios that aren't covered here. You can use our free AI generator below or our more complete goal-setting system to generate your own OKRs.
Feel free to explore our tools:
- Use our free OKR generator
- Use Tability, a complete platform to set and track OKRs and initiatives, including a GPT-4 powered goal generator
Our customisable Startup OKRs examples
You will find in the next section many different Startup Objectives and Key Results. We've included strategic initiatives in our templates to give you a better idea of the different between the key results (how we measure progress), and the initiatives (what we do to achieve the results).
Hope you'll find this helpful!
1. OKRs to identify high-potential startups for potential investment
Identify high-potential startups for potential investment
Attend or participate in a minimum of 3 startup pitch events to expand network and discover new opportunities
Register and RSVP for the chosen startup pitch events
Engage with fellow entrepreneurs and exchange contact information for future collaboration
Prepare a concise pitch to present at the startup pitch events
Research upcoming startup pitch events in the local area
Research and evaluate a minimum of 20 startups with innovative and scalable business models
Conduct thorough research on each startup's business model and scalability
Create a report summarizing the findings and key insights from the research
Compile a list of 20 startups with innovative business models
Evaluate the potential of each startup based on identified criteria
Conduct thorough due diligence on at least 10 startups, assessing financials, market potential, and team
Investigate the background and expertise of the team members in 10 startups
Summarize the findings of due diligence in concise reports for each startup assessed
Research and analyze the financial statements of 10 startups for detailed assessment
Evaluate the market potential of 10 startups through market analysis and potential growth opportunities
Establish partnerships with at least 2 trusted venture capitalists or angel investors for knowledge-sharing and potential co-investment opportunities
Reach out to the selected venture capitalists or angel investors to express interest in collaboration
Research and identify potential venture capitalists or angel investors with established credibility
Set up meetings or calls with the identified partners to discuss knowledge-sharing and co-investment opportunities
Establish formal agreements and partnerships with the selected venture capitalists or angel investors
2. OKRs to launch a viable startup in the tech industry
Launch a viable startup in the tech industry
Hire a core team of five professionals in tech, marketing, and operations
Identify required skills and experience for each job role
Schedule and conduct potential candidate interviews
Post job vacancies on suitable recruitment platforms
Finalize business plan with a detailed financial projection
Review and refine existing business model assumptions
Develop comprehensive profit and loss projections
Incorporate relevant market research into the plan
Secure investment from at least three different sources for initial capital
Research and identify potential investors
Conduct pitching sessions to these investors
Create a compelling business plan
3. OKRs to enhance synergy between startup house and startup ecosystem
Enhance synergy between startup house and startup ecosystem
Expand network with 15 new startup ecosystem partners by end of next quarter
Reach out with partnership proposals to potential partners
Identify potential startup ecosystem partners for collaboration
Follow up regularly and establish formal partnerships
Develop and organize 4 collaborative innovation workshops for startup house members
Coordinate logistics, including location, materials, and guest speakers
Determine workshop topics and objectives tailored to startup house members
Create and distribute workshop schedules, invitations and promotional materials
Facilitate 3 successful partnerships between startup house members and ecosystem players
Identify potential partners within startup house members and ecosystem players
Organize introductory meetings between identified parties
Support negotiations to formalize partnership agreements
4. OKRs to launch a high growth and profitable tech startup
Launch a high growth and profitable tech startup
Develop a minimum viable product, tested and approved by a focus group of 25 participants
Create and test the product with focus group
Implement changes based on feedback
Identify key features for the minimum viable product
Secure funding worth at least $1M from reliable investors
Schedule and conduct persuasive pitch meetings with investors
Develop a compelling business proposal showcasing ROI
Research and create a list of potential reliable investors
Assemble a cohesive team of 5 skilled professionals for key operations
Identify required skills for key operations team roles
Source potential candidates through networking or recruiting
Conduct interviews and select final team members
5. OKRs to successfully launch the tech startup
Successfully launch the tech startup
Secure funding from at least three investors by increasing company visibility
Enhance online presence through social media and optimized website
Participate in industry networking events
Develop a compelling investor presentation
Develop, test and launch the MVP (minimum viable product) targeting user validation
Design and develop the minimum viable product
Carry out rigorous testing and fixing of the MVP
Launch MVP and collect user validation data
Hire and onboard five skilled developers to establish the product team
Create a detailed job description for developer positions
Promote vacancies on targeted recruitment platforms
Develop a comprehensive onboarding program
6. OKRs to increase online community subscriptions for startups
Increase online community subscriptions for startups
Achieve a 20% increase in the overall number of startups subscribed
Offer incentives or discounts to existing customers for referring new startups to subscribe
Improve and optimize the onboarding process to increase conversion rates for new subscriptions
Develop and implement targeted marketing campaigns to attract new startup subscribers
Conduct market research to identify potential target audience for startup subscriptions
Increase user engagement by 15% to encourage startups to stay subscribed
Improve onboarding experience with a guided tutorial showcasing key features
Provide regular surveys or feedback forms to gather insights on user needs and preferences
Send personalized emails with helpful tips and success stories to inspire startups
Create an online community for startups to share experiences and network with peers
Generate 50% more leads through targeted marketing campaigns
Implement lead nurturing campaigns using email marketing automation to engage and convert leads
Optimize landing pages with clear call-to-actions and forms to capture leads effectively
Identify target audience demographics and develop personalized marketing messages for each segment
Analyze campaign performance data regularly to identify areas of improvement and adjust strategies
Improve website conversion rate by 10% to attract more startups
Utilize remarketing strategies to re-engage with potential startup customers and drive conversions
Implement A/B testing for different call-to-action buttons and optimize based on performance
Optimize landing page design and content to increase user engagement and conversion
Enhance website loading speed to reduce bounce rate and improve user experience
7. OKRs to successfully launch startup
Successfully launch startup
Secure initial funding of at least $50K
Set up pitches with interested investors
Develop a detailed business plan highlighting investment value
Identify potential investors in the chosen industry
Achieve steady user growth rate of 20% month on month
Identify and target a specific user demographic via social media campaigns
Implement a customer referral program with incentives
Optimize SEO strategies for increased organic user traffic
Onboard first 100 users
Provide personalized support for early users
Launch marketing campaign to attract initial users
Develop a comprehensive, user-friendly onboarding guide
8. OKRs to scale the startup to achieve unicorn status
Scale the startup to achieve unicorn status
Expand customer base by acquiring 100 new clients
Identify target market segments and prioritize based on potential revenue and fit
Develop targeted marketing campaigns to attract potential clients from identified segments
Establish strategic partnerships with complementary businesses to leverage their customer base
Implement referral program to encourage existing clients to refer friends and colleagues
secure $10 million in funding from investors
Identify and approach potential investors with a tailored and persuasive investment proposal
Develop and demonstrate a solid growth strategy and execution plan to convince investors
Create a compelling pitch deck highlighting the market potential, competitive advantage, and financial projections
Conduct thorough due diligence to ensure investors' trust by providing accurate financial information and projections
Increase monthly revenue by 30%
Achieve a user retention rate of 80%
Implement personalized notifications and incentives to encourage users to stay active
Improve user onboarding process to enhance engagement and reduce churn
Continuously analyze user behavior data to optimize the app experience and prevent attrition
Conduct regular user surveys to identify pain points and address them promptly
9. OKRs to improve customer satisfaction
Achieve next level customer love ❤️
Get 15 new 5-star ratings on G2 Crowd
Reach out to users high NPS feedback asking for review
Reduce the number of weekly support tickets by 50%
Create a self serve documentation portal
Improve the NPS score from 12 to 20
Create a list of 15 highly requested features to implement
10. OKRs to secure Seed funding
Be on track for Seed funding
Reach $200k ARR
Show a 3x year-on-year revenue growth
11. OKRs to drastically improve onboarding and activation
Get amazing improvements in our onboarding process
Increase the number of trials/week from 20 to 35
Display clear CTAs to help non-admins request upgrades
Add 5 clear upgrade paths for users
Increase week-1 activation rate from 55% to 65%
Identify drop-offs
Instrument activation funnel in Amplitude
Tackle top 5 low-hanging fruits to improve onboarding
Reduce trials churn from 46% to 30%
Implement fixes following feedback
Talk to 20 churned customers to understand what went wrong
12. OKRs to get a solid growth engine
Create a solid growth engine
Increase weekly leads by 30%
We're getting 0.1 leads/active customer/week
30% of new leads start a trial
13. OKRs to build an amazing user experience
Build an amazing user experience
Increase the number of weekly active users from 8k to 10k
Implement the equivalent of 100 votes in features
Identify top voted feature requests
Improve our NPS from 50 to 75
Reach out to 10 low NPS scores to understand their frustrations
14. OKRs to successfully launch a venture capital fund
Successfully launch a venture capital fund
Identify and establish connections with at least 50 potential portfolio startups
Set up follow-up meetings with interested startups
Send introductory emails to identified startups
Research contact details of potential portfolio startups
Secure investment commitments worth $20 million from initial seed investors
Research and identify potential seed investors
Arrange meetings with prospective investors
Craft business proposal highlighting potential returns
Set up legal and compliance standards for fund operations
Identify relevant local and international laws for fund operations
Develop a comprehensive compliance framework addressing these laws
Train employees on new legal and compliance standards
15. OKRs to develop a new in-product referrals program
Develop a new in-product referrals program
Improve onboarding of referred users to keep conversion above 40%
Get 3 referrals per customers on average across all accounts
Identify opportunities for network effects
Get 60% of new customer accounts to refer at least one other customer
Add referral step in the onboarding drip feed
Create incentive to reward customers for referring users
Startup OKR best practices to boost success
Generally speaking, your objectives should be ambitious yet achievable, and your key results should be measurable and time-bound (using the SMART framework can be helpful). It is also recommended to list strategic initiatives under your key results, as it'll help you avoid the common mistake of listing projects in your KRs.
Here are a couple of best practices extracted from our OKR implementation guide 👇
Tip #1: Limit the number of key results
The #1 role of OKRs is to help you and your team focus on what really matters. Business-as-usual activities will still be happening, but you do not need to track your entire roadmap in the OKRs.
We recommend having 3-4 objectives, and 3-4 key results per objective. A platform like Tability can run audits on your data to help you identify the plans that have too many goals.
![Tability Insights Dashboard](https://tability-templates-v2.vercel.app/_next/static/media/tability-insights-board.e70f9466.png)
Tip #2: Commit to weekly OKR check-ins
Don't fall into the set-and-forget trap. It is important to adopt a weekly check-in process to get the full value of your OKRs and make your strategy agile – otherwise this is nothing more than a reporting exercise.
Being able to see trends for your key results will also keep yourself honest.
![Tability Insights Dashboard](https://tability-templates-v2.vercel.app/_next/static/media/checkins-graph.b2aec458.png)
Tip #3: No more than 2 yellow statuses in a row
Yes, this is another tip for goal-tracking instead of goal-setting (but you'll get plenty of OKR examples above). But, once you have your goals defined, it will be your ability to keep the right sense of urgency that will make the difference.
As a rule of thumb, it's best to avoid having more than 2 yellow/at risk statuses in a row.
Make a call on the 3rd update. You should be either back on track, or off track. This sounds harsh but it's the best way to signal risks early enough to fix things.
How to turn your Startup OKRs in a strategy map
OKRs without regular progress updates are just KPIs. You'll need to update progress on your OKRs every week to get the full benefits from the framework. Reviewing progress periodically has several advantages:
- It brings the goals back to the top of the mind
- It will highlight poorly set OKRs
- It will surface execution risks
- It improves transparency and accountability
We recommend using a spreadsheet for your first OKRs cycle. You'll need to get familiar with the scoring and tracking first. Then, you can scale your OKRs process by using a proper OKR-tracking tool for it.
![A strategy map in Tability](https://tability-templates-v2.vercel.app/_next/static/media/tability_strategy_map.2ad25843.png)
If you're not yet set on a tool, you can check out the 5 best OKR tracking templates guide to find the best way to monitor progress during the quarter.
More Startup OKR templates
We have more templates to help you draft your team goals and OKRs.
OKRs to boost sales figures utilizing CAIS distribution team
OKRs to boost Productivity & Results of KOL Marketing
OKRs to secure a leadership role within the company
OKRs to increase Domain authority score to 35
OKRs to attain ISO 27001 certification
OKRs to elevate Rep-client relationship building skills
OKRs resources
Here are a list of resources to help you adopt the Objectives and Key Results framework.
- To learn: What is the meaning of OKRs
- Blog posts: ODT Blog
- Success metrics: KPIs examples
Create more examples in our app
You can use Tability to create OKRs with AI – and keep yourself accountable 👀
Tability is a unique goal-tracking platform built to save hours at work and help teams stay on top of their goals.
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