6 Founders Share the Goal-Setting Traps That Sabotaged Their Success (and What They Focus on Now) Some benchmarks are more important than others—so what should you really care about? We asked six founders for their hardest-won lessons.

Sometimes, we get our hearts set on a goal. We think that if we achieve it, big things will happen. But as many founders know, some milestones you thought would be huge end up being a womp womp situation. And some benchmarks you never imagined would be so important are gamechanging. It's all about having the clarity to recognize what really matters, and being able to adapt when success looks different than you thought it would. Here, we asked six founders to share the metrics or milestones they thought would matter, and the ones that actually did.

1. Followers ≠ buyers

"I initially thought we should hit a certain number of social media followers. That did bring visibility, but we learned that high follower numbers without corresponding engagement didn't translate to actual business success. On the other hand, one genuinely helpful benchmark I've set was achieving a consistent customer satisfaction rate. This metric was crucial because it directly reflected the quality of our products and the effectiveness of our customer service." — Keren Yoshua, founder, Artizan Joyeria