A few thoughts about Data
I wrote this article after enjoying a great chat about data with a VC. This article is not a Manifesto but just some thoughts I put down on paper. By the time you read this article, I’ll probably have a different vision.
Note: This post is in public beta. There may be some uncaught errors or exceptions. Please report any mistakes to max [at] getstories.io
Data is shaping tomorrow’s world. I strongly believe that companies will either succeed or die depending on how well they approach data, and how quickly they will become fully data-oriented. Most of them don’t realize yet, but you already have the top of the class taking a good lead vs. the dunces who’ll need to jump last minute in the data train to survive.
I am convinced that data is the most competitive advantage that ever existed. It is reshuffling the decks for everyone. Small players could become world leaders and vice versa. I believe the success and survival of businesses in the next decades rely on the following question: How important data take place in their strategy?
eg: a data-oriented company will be able to focus 100% of its energy on leads that worth more than their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), to spend ads only on valuable leads reducing ads budget while optimizing conversion…. and thus making its CAC 3 times cheaper than any of its. Tomorrow, while selling exactly the same product, the data-oriented company will have great margins vs. the non or less data-oriented one will probably not be viable.
They are many use cases for data. But while helping founders / CMO / CPO / Data Chief Officer, I’ve come to realize that most of the use cases as a growth / making money end goal.
It also realized that data is valuable as long as you do something with it. Having data to have data won’t lead you anywhere. Data should be here to solve problems and improve the business first.
During our chat, we came to talk about the data value chain (and the different versions of it depending on the use case. A great read is a16z article called the emerging architecture for modern data infra
I don’t want to take the time to mindmap the ecosystem but here is my very simple version of it:
this is not a competitor analysis but just a few names so you have an idea where they stand (even if once again, it’s much more complicated than that)
We came to talk about the growth funnel and the customer journey evolution along with the data infra.
The growth funnel outline all the different steps your customers need to go through. And your job is basically to improve conversion between each of these steps. And I believe you can drastically improve conversion between each of them is they are fueled with data.
I’ll use the AARRR framework in my example but it works with all of them.
I believe there is a huge shift happening: each job use to own a different part of the funnel (eg. sales acquisition, product activation, CSM retention, …). But in today’s world, more and more companies have jobs that own different part of the funnel (eg product can work on acquisition, activation, retention, and referrals)
Data, in contrast to other fields, has a strong interest to be built as a unique backbone for the entire company. Thus, the entire company will work a single data set while letting each department use it the way they need/want.
This is also why everyone, especially non-tech savvy people, needs to access and understand user data smoothly, whenever they want (without bothering the data guy).
Another interesting part of our conversation was how messy the data world is: “the best way” doesn’t exist (yet?) with data. You always have multiple options. Data teams feel often overwhelmed because it’s impossible to know if they pick the best option to build their infra. They are looking for frameworks but there are almost inexistent. They fear technical debt.
My advice: as Voltaire once said, “The best is the enemy of the good”. And it’s true with data. Just build for your current use cases and don’t plan too much for the future
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