We wandered over to Ignite Seattle on Wednesday evening for a flurry (12+) of five-minute presentations — interesting talks ranging from ‘How to play Werewolf‘ to ‘Introduction to VC Term Sheets‘ (loved this talk!). Some things I love about Ignite events:

• the audience is so supportive of speakers, especially for those that are suffering from a bit of stage fright — it’s a great reminder that we’re all growing and learning, and that we love to root for those taking chances
• the fact that many of the presentations have nothing to do with technology (the presentation on ‘Hacking Chocolate / How to Make Truffles’ was especially tasty!)

I’m biased, but my favorite learning event of the night came from Master of 500 Hats, Dave McClure (full disclosure — Dave’s a TeachStreet Board Member and investor — he and I met via shared microfinance interests and involvement)
His talk was titled “Product Marketing Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!!! (Startup Metrics for Internet Marketing & Product Management)”

It was a fantastic 5 minutes — none of the material was new, but it was a great reminder about what all marketers and business need to keep their eyes on:

• Acquisition
• Activation
• Retention
• Referral
• Revenue

In a nutshell, establish your key metrics for each of these, and then spend 80% of your time on existing feature optimization and 20% on new feature development — this is the inverse of what most product folks, and CEOs tend to do — focus is measure, weblab, optimize, rinse, lather and repeat.
If you’d like to enjoy the presentation, I recommend catching Dave live at a conference sometime soon (subscribe to his blog… he’s got a few coming up… ) — or, check out his Product Marketing Metrics for Pirates presentation.