I might go even a bit further: many product experiences that I’ve released into the wild aren’t measurable at all by near-term metrics.

How is that possible? Why would I spend time on building a product experience that I don’t expect to impact metrics that I care about?

There are many parts of the dbt experience that illustrate this perfectly. Probably the biggest three are sources, exposures, and snapshots. Each of these parts of the product is roadmap-driven. Each was built as a first step down a path guided by a product vision, not by user research or near-term desire to influence metrics. None of these features received widespread usage at launch, none of them have (yet) made a shred of commercial impact, and they’re still only shadows of our vision of what they will become. This is all exactly what we anticipated, which is 100% fine—the investments we’ve made into these areas of the product have been time very well spent.