Title: Making Andy Grove’s Strategy Work: Tracking What Matters Using Strides

Subtitle: How I’m applying Leading and Trailing Indicators at Finycs (without overcomplicating things)

If you’re building a startup like I am with Finycs, you’re probably juggling product, sales, and a million metrics that promise growth but deliver overwhelm. Andy Grove, former Intel CEO and author of High Output Management, cut through this noise by highlighting one simple truth: manage by leading and trailing indicators.

This post is a breakdown of how I’ve started using that idea in a more practical, less-theoretical way. I’ve been using Strides (a habit and goal-tracking app) to test this method — not because it’s magical, but because it’s simple enough to stick.

What Are Leading and Trailing Indicators?

• Leading Indicators are the daily or weekly actions you can control — like sending outreach emails, publishing content, or running demos — that tend to move the needle. These are inputs that, when done consistently, increase the chances of hitting your bigger goals later.
• Trailing Indicators are the results you measure after the activity has taken place — like total revenue, new customers acquired, signups from a campaign, or MRR growth. These are your scorecard metrics. They tell you if your efforts paid off, but they arrive after the fact, so they’re less useful for course-correction in the moment.

Example:

Want to increase sales? A leading indicator might be cold emails sent each day. The trailing indicator is how much revenue you closed this month.

Why I Chose Strides for This

Strides lets you set up four types of trackers:

1. Habit — great for daily or weekly actions (leading)

2. Target — ideal for goal outcomes (trailing)

3. Average — useful for pacing and consistency

What I liked is that it lets me tie habits/average to results without forcing me into spreadsheets or custom dashboards.

How I Set This Up

# 1. Define the Outcome (Trailing Indicator)

This goes into a Target Tracker.

- Example: “Close ₹2L in sales by July 31”

# 2. Break Down the Inputs (Leading Indicators)

These go into Habit or Average Trackers.

- Habit: “Send 20 cold emails on weekdays”

- Average: “Average 5 demos per week”

# 3. Group Trackers with Tags

I use tags like `#Sales`, `#Marketing`, and `#FocusWork` so I can zoom in when reviewing.

# 4. Review Rhythm

- Daily: Check habits and averages

- Weekly: Review targets and make adjustments

Example Setup for Sales & Marketing at Finycs

Why It’s Been Useful

- Alignment: Daily work connects to real goals.

- Feedback Loop: Early signs let me adapt before it’s too late.

- Momentum: Progress compounds when tracked consistently.

Wrapping Up

Grove’s idea of combining leading and trailing indicators isn’t rocket science — but putting it into practice takes some structure. I’ve found Strides useful here, but honestly, the real value comes from thinking about your inputs and outputs clearly.

Track what you control. Keep an eye on what matters. Adjust as you go.

If you’re testing this approach yourself, I’d love to hear how you’re tracking it — or even better, what you’re learning from it.