Lead Time

Lead time is the total elapsed time from the moment a customer makes a request to the moment they receive the result, measured by the clock on the wall, including every bit of waiting in between. If someone signs up on Monday and is fully onboarded the following Monday, your onboarding lead time is seven days, regardless of how little hands-on work it actually took. It's the customer's-eye view of how long things take.

For a lean founder lead time is the number customers actually judge you on, far more than your internal efficiency. They don't see or care that the work itself took twenty minutes; they feel the week they waited. Because lead time counts all the queues and handoffs, it's usually dominated by idle waiting rather than active effort, which is good news: you can often slash it by removing a delay rather than working faster. Track lead time on the processes customers feel most, and attack the waiting first.