Time to Value
Also known as: TTVTime-to-ValueTime to First ValueActivation TimeAha Moment Delay
💡The Concept
Time to Value (TTV) measures how long it takes a new user to experience the core benefit of your product — their 'aha moment.' Slack's TTV is minutes: send one message, get an instant reply. Enterprise software TTV can stretch to 90+ days, during which 40-60% of users abandon. Research by Totango shows that products achieving TTV under 5 minutes retain 2.5x more users in month 1 than those with TTV over 1 hour.
⚠️The Trap
The trap is confusing 'account created' with 'value received.' Most analytics dashboards track signups, not activations. A SaaS tool might report 10,000 new users this month while only 2,000 ever completed setup. Those 8,000 incomplete setups aren't lost leads — they're users who experienced zero value and will never return. Measuring signups instead of TTV hides an 80% failure rate.
🎯The Action
Map your activation steps: what specific action proves a user 'got it'? For Calendly, it's booking your first meeting. For Figma, it's designing your first frame. Measure TTV as median time from signup to that action. Target: under 10 minutes for self-serve products, under 7 days for B2B tools. Reduce TTV by removing every setup step that doesn't directly lead to the aha moment — Dropbox cut onboarding from 14 steps to 4 and saw a 60% increase in activation.
⚡Pro Tips
Track TTV by acquisition channel — organic signups typically have 30-40% shorter TTV than paid users because they already understand the product.
Run a 'five-second value' test: can a new user describe what your product does within 5 seconds of landing? If not, your TTV starts with confusion, not progress.
Offer a 'sample workspace' or pre-loaded demo so users experience value before they invest time in setup. Notion's templates reduce TTV from hours to minutes.
🚫Common Myths
✗Myth: “TTV only matters for consumer products”
✓Reality: Enterprise products with long TTV lose 40-60% of trial users before they ever see value. Salesforce solved this by offering pre-configured industry templates that reduce TTV from weeks to days.
✗Myth: “More features reduce TTV by giving users more to explore”
✓Reality: More features increase TTV by adding decision paralysis. Canva's 1-click templates are faster to value than Adobe's comprehensive toolkit — that's why Canva grew from 0 to 100M users in 8 years.
📈Industry Benchmarks
Time to Value
Self-serve SaaS / PLG productsElite
< 5 minutes
Good
5-15 minutes
Average
15-60 minutes
Needs Work
1-24 hours
Critical
> 24 hours
Source: Pendo 2024 Product Benchmarks Report
Activation Rate
B2B SaaS free trial / freemiumElite
> 60%
Good
40-60%
Average
25-40%
Needs Work
15-25%
Critical
< 15%
Source: OpenView 2024 PLG Benchmarks
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