retention product
Activation metrics often track account creation or onboarding completion. Those are convenient, not always meaningful. The first value moment is the earliest action after which retained users behave differently from churned ones.
In practice we compare week-4 retention between users who did and did not reach candidate moments within their first session or first three days. The moment with the strongest lift—and that product can still influence—becomes the activation anchor.
Once named, instrument it carefully, put it on the KPI sheet, and design onboarding to shorten time-to-value rather than time-to-form-submit.