What Is Cohort Retention?
Cohort retention tracks the percentage of users from a specific signup period (cohort) who remain active at each subsequent month. A retention curve that flattens above 30–40% indicates strong product-market fit. Steep early drop-offs signal onboarding problems.
Why it matters: this metric helps founders separate random variation from real business movement. Decisions improve when the metric is tracked in trend form, not one-off snapshots.
How to use it in practice: pair this metric with at least one upstream and one downstream signal. That way, you can explain why it changed and what action should come next.
In AI Co-Founder, this term appears in context with related indicators so you can move from definition to decision without switching tools.