Measuring performance in start-ups: What lessons can be learned for management control in companies?

This paper presents an empirical analysis of performance measurement systems in the entrepreneurial arena. Through interviews, observations, and documentary analyses, we find that, against the backdrop of severe resource restrictions, high uncertainty, and significant data abundance, startups proceed with a high level of prioritization. More specifically, they often resort to using very few, high-level, outcome-oriented (i.e., customer-centric) performance measures known as North Star Metrics in the practitioner literature. It is in this context that we elaborate on the concept of radical prioritization, i.e., a startup's focused and deliberate attention to specific performance measurement data while largely disregarding other data. Further, we theorize on this widespread use of North Star Metrics in entrepreneurial practice, attributing it to their performative quality (Revellino &'' Mouritsen, 2015) and their role as a boundary object (Star &'' Griesemer, 1989). As practical implications, we also present several ways in which established companies can draw inspiration from the entrepreneurial practices we have observed in order to enhance their own performance measurement systems.