A school that uses FutureFund — my fundraising platform for K-12 school groups — recently raised $9,500 for their softball team during a hit-a-thon campaign. That money will have a positive impact on those students, but it's not what we would use to advertise the value of our platform.

Without context, that $9,500 doesn't provide any useful information to potential users. It may feel a bit positive, but it says nothing about what they can expect from using the platform. In other words, it is one vanity metric.

Here's a better way to look at the data: $9,500 raised by a team of 30 students breaks down to about $353 per student. Imagine a school group trying to raise money for a 50-player football team – or a fun run with hundreds of participants. This per-student metric meant a lot more to them than an arbitrary lump sum.

strands they often make this mistake. They focus on numbers that don't really matter while ignoring the ones that do.

Here's how you can fix it.

Connected: We're Great at Wishing and Bad at Making Choices – How Vague Goals and Narrow Objectives Derail Our Success

This is the number one startup metric to follow (and why it's not useful)

The biggest vanity metric that most startups track is their growth rate. You see it all the time – companies advertising that they've grown by an incredible amount – like 500% in the last year. But here's the thing:

If you start at $1, go to $5 and call it 500% growth, it means nothing. It's still only $5. A lemonade stand can grow 500% in a year, but that doesn't make it a successful business or a viable opportunity for investors.

Now, that doesn't mean percent increase it never matters. If you're an established company trying to grow at 20% and you grow at 22%, that can still be important. But for most startups, this is the biggest metric of futility.

Connected: Why this metric should take precedence over growth for startup success

How to spot vanity metrics at a glance

Here's my rule of thumb when people ask me what a vanity metric is: any metric you put on your website or press release is probably a vanity metric. Any metric with a nice, round number. Things with a lot of commas. Things that look good.

They are not always useless, but you should not follow them. They can look good on your site and make people feel comfortable doing business with you, and they are broadly useful for your marketing. You just don't have to relocate your business operations to make them bigger.

Why your mission should always come first

I never had a goal of raising $140 million for the FutureFund. When we hit $130 million, did it feel good? Of course. Could such an achievement be a proxy for more income? Of course. But I knew that it also could not be our mission.

Our mission is to enrich the lives of students everywhere. It would be better to measure how many students are impacted by our platform and how many of them are able to experience things that they wouldn't be able to without our platform.

These metrics actually tell us how well we are doing in our mission. They reflect whether we are fulfilling our purpose, not just how much money we are making. Being purpose-driven helps us set more ambitious goals and have a more meaningful impact on the world. It helps us think big and do better.

Connected: Are you guilty of giving this terrible leadership advice? Here's how to help others think big and why it's the key to success

Futility Metrics vs. Growth Leverages

Then there are the growth levers—the numbers we use to improve our business. These are some of the best metrics to analyze, though they're rarely the most interesting to talk about. They are not as exciting, but they are much more useful.

The levers for growth are different depending on your mission or your immediate goals. For example, if you are taking people, you want to look Customer acquisition costsflow rates, etc. Since our goal in The future fund is to help schools, we look at how many dollars are raised per student at each school that works with us.

This brings us back to the softball team. Yes, they raised $9,500 – but that $353 per player was the metric we worked out. It shows other schools what they can expect by working with us and reflects how effectively people are using the platform, which can drive improvements and new features in the future. It's no longer just for advertising; it is also a significant growth lever.

Connected: This strategic growth lever is right under your nose. Use it to multiply your company's success

The percentage of growth is too relative to mean much to most startups, and the revenue isn't tied to your mission, which ultimately keeps your customers coming back. When you put aside these vanity metrics and focus on the growth levers that help you bring more value to your market, you set yourself up for more consistent and sustainable growth.