Decomposes active-user or revenue growth into new, retained, resurrected, expansion, contraction, and churned flows, reconciles the identity exactly, and reads the quick ratio to diagnose whether growth is an acquisition, retention, or resurrection problem.
Decomposes active-user or revenue growth into new, retained, resurrected, expansion, contraction, and churned flows, reconciles the identity exactly, and reads the quick ratio to diagnose whether growth is an acquisition, retention, or resurrection problem. Use when someone asks "why did our MAU change", "our top line grew but I don't trust it", "what's our quick ratio", "build an MRR bridge", or "is our growth acquisition-driven or retention-driven". Do NOT use for forecasting future growth from loops and assumptions - use growth-model instead - for general event instrumentation and funnel metrics - use product-analytics instead - or for churn interventions themselves - use churn-reduction instead.This is the skill's description: the text your AI reads to decide when the skill applies.
growth-accounting/SKILL.md
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name: Growth Accounting
description: Decomposes active-user or revenue growth into new, retained, resurrected, expansion, contraction, and churned flows, reconciles the identity exactly, and reads the quick ratio to diagnose whether growth is an acquisition, retention, or resurrection problem. Use when someone asks "why did our MAU change", "our top line grew but I don't trust it", "what's our quick ratio", "build an MRR bridge", or "is our growth acquisition-driven or retention-driven". Do NOT use for forecasting future growth from loops and assumptions - use growth-model instead - for general event instrumentation and funnel metrics - use product-analytics instead - or for churn interventions themselves - use churn-reduction instead.
---
# Growth Accounting
A top-line active-user or revenue chart can rise while the business underneath rots: heavy acquisition masking accelerating churn is the classic failure, and it is invisible until the paid channel stalls. Growth accounting decomposes every period's change into its flows so the chart cannot lie, and the decomposition tells you which lever - acquisition, retention, or resurrection - actually needs work.
## Operating procedure
Reconcile before you interpret: an identity that does not balance means the flags are wrong, and every downstream conclusion with them.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
1. The activity definition - what user action counts as "active." Require a meaningful action, not just a login; default to the product's core value event.
2. The period - daily, weekly, or monthly. Match it to the natural usage cadence and keep it consistent; a monthly product measured weekly will show fake churn.
3. The event table - one row per user per active period (or MRR per account per month for revenue).
4. Whether the user wants user-count accounting, revenue accounting (the MRR bridge), or both. Default: both if MRR exists.
5. Segmentation dimensions available - cohort, channel, plan.
### Step 2: Compute the user flows
Comparing the set of active users this period versus last:
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