datatools-dev/docs/POST-LAUNCH.md

Post-launch — 90-day measurement plan

Creator-only. The other half of PLAN.md: PLAN tells you what to build, this tells you what to measure once it's live and which numbers trigger which actions. Version: 1.0 · Adopted: 2026-05-01 · Owner: Michael

This is a runnable monthly checklist, not analytics theatre. Every metric below has a threshold and an action. If you're not willing to execute the action when the threshold trips, drop the metric — measuring without responding is busywork.

1. The five numbers that matter

Every other dashboard, chart, or vanity stat is downstream of these five. The funnel is short on purpose; pre-PMF traffic doesn't have the resolution to support more.

#	Metric	How to compute	Threshold	When tripped
1	Persona engagement	demo.run_completed / demo.page_view per persona	< 30 % for 4 consecutive weeks	Demo isn't running or BEFORE preview isn't compelling. Action: check iframe loads; widen BEFORE preview to show pollution clearly; move demo above the fold.
2	Demo→CTA intent	demo.cta_clicked / demo.run_completed per persona	< 5 % for 4 consecutive weeks	Demo is impressive but the CTA isn't earning trust. Action: add network-tab privacy screenshot; soften the price callout; A-B test eyebrow copy on the CTA card.
3	Purchase rate	gumroad.purchase / demo.cta_clicked per persona	< 30 % for 4 consecutive weeks	Visitors click through but don't pull the card out. Action: check Gumroad listing renders cleanly; verify refund-policy copy; check that the screenshot on the listing matches the demo they just ran.
4	Refund rate	gumroad.refunds / gumroad.purchase rolling 30 days	> 5 %	Buyer expectation mismatch. Action: read every refund email; determine if it's a feature gap (build it), a positioning lie (rewrite), or a personal-fit miss (fine, ignore).
5	Support load	email tickets / 100 sales rolling 30 days	> 10	The product isn't self-serve enough at this price. Action: find the top 3 questions; add to in-app onboarding + landing-page FAQ + the persona's saved pipeline.

These five also map to BUSINESS.md §12 — that doc names the metrics; this doc operationalises them.

2. Monthly review — 30-minute checklist

Block 30 minutes on the first Monday of every month for the first six months. After month 6 if numbers are stable, drop to 15 minutes quarterly.

[ ] Pull last 30 days of demo events from Cloudflare Web Analytics
[ ] Pull last 30 days of Gumroad sales + refunds export
[ ] Compute the five numbers in §1 per persona
[ ] Note which thresholds are tripped (if any)
[ ] Read every refund email since last review
[ ] Read every support email since last review
[ ] Decide ONE thing to change this month (only one)
[ ] Update CHANGELOG with what was changed and why
[ ] Schedule next review

The "decide ONE thing" rule is load-bearing. Pre-PMF traffic doesn't have the volume to A/B-test multiple changes in parallel — you'll just confuse yourself about what moved the number.

3. Per-persona scoreboard (template)

Maintain in a single text file or spreadsheet. The shape that fits in a notebook page is the shape you'll actually update.

Month: 2026-06
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                       Shopify  Bookkeeper  RevOps  Total
Page views                420         180     290    890
Demo runs                 137          59      82    278
CTA clicks                  9           7       6     22
Purchases                   3           2       2      7

Metric 1 (engage)        33%         33%     28%   31%
Metric 2 (intent)         7%         12%      7%    8%
Metric 3 (purchase)      33%         29%     33%   32%
Metric 4 (refund)         0%          0%      0%    0%
Metric 5 (support)         3 tickets  /  100 sales

Tripped thresholds:      RevOps engagement (28% < 30%)

This-month change:       Move demo embed above the fold on revops
                         page; reduce hero text by 40%.

Last-month change:       Added network-tab screenshot to all 3
                         pages.  Result: intent +1.5 percentage
                         points on Shopify, flat elsewhere.

4. Stage-gate triggers from PLAN.md

Reproduced here so the gate criteria sit beside the metrics that fire them:

Trigger	From	Action
First paying customer	PLAN §4	Continue. Plan is working.
Zero paid in 90 days	PLAN §4	Audit the funnel. Don't add features. Run a small (1-week) outbound experiment to 30 niche-community contacts as a control, even though it stretches the no-touch constraint, to determine whether the bottleneck is reach or conversion.
$5 k/mo MRR	DECISIONS §8	Re-evaluate async constraint. Add priority-support tier (PLAN §2.7).
$10 k/mo MRR	DECISIONS §8	Revisit time-budget allocation. Decide on tools 06–08 vs. additional bundles.
Marketplace shutdown	PLAN §4 / DECISIONS §8	Switch landing-page CTA to own-domain Stripe Checkout. Pre-built; one-line edit.
Streamlit hard direction change	DECISIONS §8	Low-probability re-lock. Tk fallback documented.
Burnout signal	DECISIONS §8	Stop. Triage. The constraint matters more than the revenue ramp.

5. What we deliberately do NOT measure

These look productive but predict nothing pre-PMF. Don't add them.

• Bounce rate — single-page sites have artificially high bounce. Useless signal.
• Time on page — landing pages are supposed to be quick reads. Long time on page often means confusion, not engagement.
• Heatmaps / scroll-depth — no statistical resolution at <500 monthly visitors. Add when you cross 5 k/month.
• Email open rates — under §2.7 priority support is the only email channel; opens aren't a buying signal.
• Social mentions — vanity. The signal that matters is "did they buy" or "did they come back."

6. What we measure once, then trust

Do these once, then let them run for 6+ months without re-measuring:

• Demo correctness — once per pipeline release, run all 3 demos end-to-end via tests/test_pipeline.py and check the output looks reasonable. The CI pipeline already does this; nothing to add.
• Cross-platform install — once per release, verify the PyInstaller bundle launches on Mac / Windows / Linux. After three green releases, trust the build pipeline; spot-check on major OS updates only.
• Privacy claim integrity — once at launch, capture the network tab while running the cleaner and host that screenshot at a stable URL. Re-capture only when a new tool or dependency is added.

7. Per-persona attribution

The buy buttons on every landing page carry ?from=<persona> query parameters. Gumroad propagates that into the order metadata. Use it to attribute purchases:

persona key	landing page URL	Gumroad query	Source
shopify-pet	/shopify-pet/	?from=shopify-pet	Shopify operator
bookkeeper	/bookkeeper/	?from=bookkeeper	Bookkeeper / freelance accountant
revops	/revops/	?from=revops	Marketing / RevOps agency
apex	/	(no query — use unknown bucket)	Generic discovery

When unknown exceeds 30 % of total, add UTM tagging to community posts and SEO blog backlinks so you can break the bucket apart.

8. The four months that decide whether the plan works

Reading PLAN.md §3 + this doc together, the rough script:

Month	What's running	What we expect to learn
M1 (June)	Installers · demo · 3 landing pages · Gumroad live	Whether the funnel mechanically works. Numbers will be noisy; just look for one purchase.
M2 (July)	M1 + community posts in 3 niches + 1 SEO post	Which persona converts. Re-allocate effort to the highest-converting niche.
M3 (August)	M2 + landing-page changes from M2 review	Whether intent-rate moved on the change. Decide tools 06–08 go/no-go.
M4 (September)	M3 + first repeat-buyer signals	Whether the Pipeline Runner is producing retention as designed.

By end of M4, the data tells you whether the plan is producing $1k–3k/mo (BUSINESS.md §6 6-month target) — extrapolated from the trajectory, not the absolute number.

9. The hardest part of the plan to execute

Not the metrics. Not the build. The "decide ONE thing per month" rule — operators with engineering backgrounds chronically pick three changes per month and conclude nothing because their signal is muddled. This doc says one. It means one.