Are customer interaction/traction and revenue the primary differentiators? Thoughts?

Eric Ries and Steve Blank have spent entire books on this.

I sum their thoughts up with this: have a model and some discipline that if you're consistently missing the metrics you're shooting for you have to assess if you're on the right path.

Love the Lean Startup and Blank's books (and blogs) on Customer Development and The Startup Owner's Manual. One of the things I dwell on too much is which metrics are most meaningful, how long do you give a version of your product to generate metrics before you determine that you need to pivot, and how do you know when you need to alter your metrics stack.

You can't decide on metrics independently of what hypothesis you are trying to test.

I suggest you start by mapping out your assumptions (there's a lot of ways to tease this out from storyboards to business model canvas.) Then pick the ONE assumption/hypothesis that will kill your business if not true.

Then do NOT figure out how to prove that hypothesis true. You can never do that. You can just build evidence.

Instead, figure out how to prove it false and then test and measure that. What would completely convince you that you're doing the wrong direction?

I am using the business model canvas, Tristan. Not being able to convert beta registrants to active participants would be ONE failed hypothesis that would kill my business.

As with most things in life, it depends.

How much do you believe what you're doing will turn out well?

Ahhh.... I believe!!

If you believe, then no pivots. Just make it awesome.

Thank you, Adam! I needed to hear that!

I've been there too, Christine. Good luck!

Thanks, Adam! You too!

Interaction, traction, and revenue are the primary things to watch.

As well as your overall enthusiasm for the product.

Have your angels shared your enthusiasm or do you find that you have to work that harder with them than you would care to? Have you found them able to reasonably balance their revenue expectations with the experimentation that comes with the lean approach?

So far my angels have been very helpful. They're enthusiastic, supportive, and are willing to let us experiment.

But we have turned down a lot of angels, so perhaps our angels behave this way because that's what we were screening for?

I read an interesting blog post on the paradigm changes for angels and VCs that made me think about your screening of angels. http://freddestin.com/2012/05/singularity-hits-venture-capital.html