Time Spent
Average spent per session per active user (sometimes badged as “dwell time”) is a really helpful metric when evaluating engagement of a consumer tech company. It’s a blunt force instrument in some ways, but ultimately, if someone is spending a lot of time with a product that’s a pretty good sign they’re enjoying it.
Looking through a few consumer S-1s for some benchmarking I’m working on, it seems like 20 minutes is the lower bound of best-in-class, with the absolute breakout champion being Roblox at 2.6 hours(!)
For me, LinkedIn, Outlook, Spotify and WhatsApp are the only apps in the 20 minutes+ camp. It’s hard to imagine a new thing breaking in. But I guess that’s the point - it’s not obvious, until it is…