This content was created by Eric Siu. This content was uploaded by Eric Siu. This is a YouTube episode titled "Shopify Doesn't Use KPIs or OKRs" (uploaded April 18, 2025). The excerpt is a diarized conversational transcript between Eric Siu and Neil Patel. They discuss management and measurement practices — Shopify and Tobi's view on KPIs/OKRs and Goodhart's Law, the limits of metrics, growth targets and RFPs from Neil's agency, the tendency for founders to keep moving goalposts, management-up tactics, and pitfalls of following management fads (holacracy, four-day workweeks). The clip also includes a short promo for Neil's agency NP Digital and SEO tools (Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic).
Chapters
Did you know that Shopify doesn't use KPIs or OKRs?
Really?
Yeah, so they use it for guidance. But basically what Tobi said was, he calls, he says, Goodhart's Law is real. The moment a metric becomes a goal, it's no longer a useful metric. No metric by itself is a complete heuristic for a complex business. There's a million different tensions in a company, and you can't keep all of them in harmony by optimizing for one thing. So he says, they're extremely data-informed, we have invested enormous amount of monies and time into systems that give us basically everything at our fingertips. But there's a lot of things that you can't optimize, right? So like, he's like taste, quality, passion, love, hate, you know, the sort of deep satisfaction that a craftsman feels when they've done a good job well is actually a better proxy if you allow it to be. And I think to an extent I agree with that. But, you know, he's not saying they don't use it at all. I think they don't treat OKRs and KPIs as gospel. I think it's a backup to number one. And I've seen this in some cases. This is just another example. I mean, he's a publicly traded company CEO. So what do you think?
No, I've never really followed OKRs that often.
No, you've never followed OKRs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My team does, but I don't.
I think the only thing you look at is like, how are we doing with new revenue, profit? Right.
I think I mentioned this on this podcast. If not, I mentioned it on past episodes. In the United States, not globally, just, but just US last year, we got 6 RFPs. in Q1 of 2024. We ended this year in 2025, just in the United States with 13. But as we're going into it from 2023 to 2024, we saw a little bit more than a 15% growth because our US went from 16 RFPs to 25. So it was one more than 50%, right? Instead of 24, we got 25. So I told the team this year, I'm like, we need to get another 50%, you know, because they say as you grow, Larger and larger, your numbers, your growth rate should slow down.
Oh yeah, but you don't want to accept that.
Yeah. So I was like, we need another 50% this year. So I was talking to my team and as we're going along in Q1, I changed it to, we need to hit at least double. And then when we got double and we're at 13 instead of 6, I was like—
100%.
Yeah. I'm like, we need 14 by the end of Q1. And then I was on the phone with Nick and he's like, dude, if I get you 14, you're going to ask for 20. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds about right. Dude.
That's the problem with founders. Sometimes we keep moving the goalposts and that's a nice way to burn people out. It's true. But, but if Nick, for example, has worked with you for a long time, he knows how to manage you. He would ideally, Nick, you just set the targets a little lower that way when Neil tries to double it. You know what I mean? You have to learn how to manage upwards too. Yeah.
No, there's no targets. I randomly make up my own targets and I want people to hit them with things like that. I don't do the revenue targeting. I don't do churn targeting. You know, the people who are running the business from operations standpoint do all that kind of stuff. But from marketing KPIs, I don't really put KPIs when things are going good and you meet targets. I just keep changing the goalposts.
All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital. And they work with a whole host of global companies or global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more. And we'll see you on the other side. Yeah. I'm the same way too. And so, by the way, this is a good example of not necessarily everything you read around management books is true, right? It's like, oh yeah, you should do OKRs, KPIs, because Google did them. Oh, you should, you know, for every one criticism you put on somebody else, you should have 5 compliments. I tried that before, by the way. I started making up compliments, right? And I was just like, screw that, right? Like, like, Just be who you are. I think eventually you read all these things, but eventually just learn that do what's right for you. Like I remember I worked for a company; they implemented holacracy. You know what that is?
No.
Okay, holacracy is Zappos' way where they don't have any managers. They just read about it, and then one day they just implemented it, and then no more managers, right? All of a sudden ripped off the bandit. Total disaster. That was also the same company that did four-day work weeks. Okay, but what happens with four-day work weeks where your A player ends your A players? I like to think of myself as an A player. I ended up working seven days a week, right? So you reading all these things and being susceptible to all this information and taking action on every single bit—the shiny knowledge syndrome thing—that can really screw up a business. So yeah, but anyway, that is it for today, guys. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
