Time to Value (TTV) is the time between a user signing up and the moment they first understand why your product is worth keeping. The shorter that gap, the more users stick around.
In PLG products, TTV is one of the most important metrics you can track. Users don't give you much time. If they can't feel the value in the first session, sometimes the first few minutes, they leave. No sales call is coming to save them. No email sequence brings most of them back.
The aha moment
The aha moment is the specific instant where value clicks. For Dropbox, it's watching a file sync automatically. For Slack, it's getting a message from a teammate and realizing conversations are organized. For FeatureOS, it might be seeing your first piece of customer feedback land cleanly on a board instead of in an email inbox.
Everything in your onboarding flow should be aimed at reaching that moment faster.
How to improve it
Improving TTV usually means removing steps. Every required field, every "you'll need to do X before Y," every optional setup screen is friction between the user and their aha moment.
To measure it: pick your aha moment action (first feedback submitted, first teammate invited, first export), then track the time between signup and that event. Use the median, not the average. Outliers skew averages badly.
If new users are asking "how do I do X?" in your feedback boards, that's a TTV problem in disguise.