bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

I spoke with a colleague on the art of turning data in to products.

Given we live in a data-centric world there doesn’t appear to much dialogue on the topic so I’m adding some 🙂

Every product or service creates data. More and more companies are looking at how to build data businesses and many launch a ‘data’ product but few will go deep.

A lot of that is to do with product management, productizing data isn’t an easy process. In general there are a few levels to it.

• Level One: The sell is more data, get more than you had before.
• Level Two: Once you have sold too much ‘new data’, you have to swap or adjust to ‘curated data’.
• Level Three: Insights or recommendations, make meaning from this data.
• Level Four: Delta, show me the delta or contextualize these for me.

Then rinse/repeat.

Or at least that’s the theory.

Many companies do level one, and then at each step it drops dramatically. Why? Competition, need and market.

Highly motivated end users will push a company to get to stage four fast. Then at that point it’s continual renewal to standardize and continue to conextualize data.

Some companies only need to get to stage one or two, or can spend years before stage three or four. That’s ok. But this helps provide a framework or directionality.

Young companies excel, by demonstrating leadership.

They’re new, they’re fresh, they’re small, they’re fast.

All the exact opposite of any old company.

Their first customers, are those that want to be led, that want to try something new.

So if you’re a new company, lean in to that, embrace it, it’s what’ll get you a few years under your belt.