What metrics actually show true product health beyond monthly active users?
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A monthly active user metric can look completely stable while underlying product usage slowly drifts into a passive state.
Realizing that logins do not equal active value creation made us completely rethink how we track long term retention.
For founders looking past the initial growth phase: what retention metrics actually give you an honest signal about product health?
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I think the honest metric is the moment the user gets the value, defined narrowly enough that idling cannot fake it. In my song app those moments are two: thirty seconds of listening to a freshly made song, and a successful share. They are also what triggers the app's review prompt, for the same reason: someone who just did one of those has actually received something. A login or an open counts neither. Whatever your product's version is, I would pick the one action that only happens when it worked, and track how often a returning user repeats it.
I did focus on cohort retention, repeat usage, and how often users return to complete the product's core action. MAU shows activity, but retention tells you whether people are actually getting lasting value from the product