[solve]

Retention and NPS seem orthogonal.

[ivankirigin]

Nope. NPS is a measure of satisfaction. You care about the word of mouth component, but it isn't measuring something different than retention.

[solve]

Nope. They're literally measuring two different things, return rates vs "would tell a friend" rates.

Whether those two happen to coincide is quite product-dependent. Finding examples where they significantly diverge is trivial.

[tyre]

A recent example of this is Peach.

Did people want to tell their friends? Yes, but not because they loved the product. Because they wanted to be seen as cutting edge.

Most of the product hunt/tech crunch circle jerk is stuff like this. Lots of fluff with short-term spikes but little long term retention because the product doesn't solve a real need.

[rgbrgb]

I'd say they're different, but definitely not orthogonal. NPS asks if you'd recommend the product, retention is how long you stick around after first use. Both metrics embed the user's affinity for the product (which is the underlying thing sama's saying to measure and improve).