Agile Analytics For Startups

While you work hard building your startup, one of the biggest challenges you’ll face will be around your product’s ability to solve a big enough problem and its success in the market. Agile Analytics for Startups will help you navigate the complexity of early-stage business analytics, performance measurement, and the metrics that matter to your company. You can use the proven frameworks in this book to validate your product idea and the product/market fit, and understand your customers more granularly while you scale your business for automation. You can test and use many tools and solutions provided in the book and interact with different features of those solutions as you engage with other users of those products. This book will provide you with a step-by-step framework, examples and powerful solutions, from ideation to growth and all the way to scaling your business as you build your company with the power of analytics. -Agility is your advantage over large companies -Understand business analytics essentials and define how you will measure the success of your business early -Once you define your solution for “the problem” you tackle, validate your customer -Keep a short list of KPIs for the success of your product -Engage your customers throughout the development cycle -Product/market fit should happen before you go to market big -Keep testing your product, reiterate continuously -Know when to pivot as you modify and optimize your roadmap Be ready to speed up and maximize your output before the significant funding milestone(s)

Using Agile methods, you can bring far greater innovation, value, and quality to any data warehousing (DW), business intelligence (BI), or analytics project. However, conventional Agile methods must be carefully adapted to address the unique characteristics of DW/BI projects. In Agile Analytics, Agile pioneer Ken Collier shows how to do just that. Collier introduces platform-agnostic Agile solutions for integrating infrastructures consisting of diverse operational, legacy, and specialty systems that mix commercial and custom code. Using working examples, he shows how to manage analytics development teams with widely diverse skill sets and how to support enormous and fast-growing data volumes. Collier's techniques offer optimal value whether your projects involve "back-end" data management, "front-end" business analysis, or both. Part I focuses on Agile project management techniques and delivery team coordination, introducing core practices that shape the way your Agile DW/BI project community can collaborate toward success Part II presents technical methods for enabling continuous delivery of business value at production-quality levels, including evolving superior designs; test-driven DW development; version control; and project automation Collier brings together proven solutions you can apply right now--whether you're an IT decision-maker, data warehouse professional, database administrator, business intelligence specialist, or database developer. With his help, you can mitigate project risk, improve business alignment, achieve better results--and have fun along the way.

Whether you're a startup founder trying to disrupt an industry or an entrepreneur trying to provoke change from within, your biggest challenge is creating a product people actually want. Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction. This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without. Understand Lean Startup, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindset Look at six sample business models and how they map to new ventures of all sizes Find the One Metric That Matters to you Learn how to draw a line in the sand, so you'll know it's time to move forward Apply Lean Analytics principles to large enterprises and established products

For years, organizations have struggled to make sense out of their data. IT projects designed to provide employees with dashboards, KPIs, and business-intelligence tools often take a year or more to reach the finish line...if they get there at all. This has always been a problem. Today, though, it's downright unacceptable. The world changes faster than ever. Speed has never been more important. By adhering to antiquated methods, firms lose the ability to see nascent trends—and act upon them until it's too late. But what if the process of turning raw data into meaningful insights didn't have to be so painful, time-consuming, and frustrating? What if there were a better way to do analytics? Fortunately, you're in luck... Analytics: The Agile Way is the eighth book from award-winning author and Arizona State University professor Phil Simon. Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates how progressive organizations such as Google, Nextdoor, and others approach analytics in a fundamentally different way. They are applying the same Agile techniques that software developers have employed for years. They have replaced large batches in favor of smaller ones...and their results will astonish you. Through a series of case studies and examples, Analytics: The Agile Way demonstrates the benefits of this new analytics mind-set: superior access to information, quicker insights, and the ability to spot trends far ahead of your competitors.

Data has been a missing part of most academic curriculums for a long time, and we're all being affected. During challenging times, creating a data-informed culture can help you pivot quickly or prevent expensive missteps. Developing a data curious organization will take advantage of the burgeoning data resources available as a result of increasing digitalization. With this book, authors Carl Allchin and Sarah Nabelsi show today's business professionals how to become data empowered. These tech-savvy business professionals will learn data literacy fundamentals—from understanding the possibilities to asking the right questions. You'll discover how to make the right technology choices and avoid pitfalls that could put your career and company at risk. Discover what an agile, empowered, data-driven organization should look like Examine how to use data in new ways to help your business come to life Learn key terms and concepts around data management and analytics Understand the differences between spreadsheet analysis and a data analytics pipeline Get advice for working with data scientists and explore ways to mitigate the IT department's concerns

This Is How The World's Top Tech Companies Manage Their Projects - Use Their Methods And Let Your Startup Thrive! This book includes: Lean Startup, Lean Enterprise, Lean Analytics, Agile Project Management, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen Do you want to run your small business using the same strategies as the leaders in your field? Do you want to have a clear advantage over your competitors? Do you want your customers to be happy and eager to pay you even more? It's time to learn Lean. With Lean Project Management, you can create highquality products in less time. You can manage projects in a way that actually empowers and motivates your employees. Last but not least, your customers will LOVE working with you if your company uses Lean and Agile methods. This book will show you how to implement Lean methods in your startup and take it to the next level. With this book, you will: Learn the step-by-step process of managing Lean projects Maximize your team's productivity with Scrum Visualize your workflows with Kanban Understand Lean Six Sigma roles and management boards Explore The 5S system - pros and cons Use Lean Analytics to measure the things that matter Adopt the Kaizen mindset to encourage growth and positive change Grow and scale your thriving business! The Lean mindset is your key to maximum productivity and genuine leadership. It's your key to innovation and success (and making more money in the process). You can use it to manage everything from your personal projects to a thriving corporation - Lean is scalable, flexible, and empowering. In fact, Lean Project Management can be used in all fields and industries - so dive in and transform your business now! Get your hands on this book before your competitors do. Get Your Copy Now!

During the 2008 financial crisis, Starbucks avoided a potential tailspin by creatively leveraging advanced analytics. But rather than collaborate with centralized IT or analytics teams, the company used an analytics solution from tech-savvy business professionals to re-engage loyal patrons and capture a new generation of coffee lovers. With this book, author Joseph D. Stec shows today's business professionals how to set up teams to be data self-sufficient. These citizen data analysts will learn data literacy fundamentals, from understanding the possibilities to asking the right questions. You'll discover how to make the right technology choices and avoid pitfalls that could put your career and company at risk. Learn how to elicit insights from your data by becoming data literate Discover what an agile, empowered, data-driven organization should look like Examine how to use data in new ways to help make your business come to life Learn key terms and concepts around data management and analytics Understand the differences between spreadsheet analysis and a data analytics pipeline Get advice for working with data scientists, and explore ways to mitigate the IT department's concerns

Agile is a set of values, principles, techniques, and frameworks for the adaptable, incremental, and efficient delivery of work. Big Data is a rapidly growing field that encompasses crucial aspects of data such as its volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. This book outlines a strategic approach to Big Data that will render a business Agile. It discusses the important competencies required to streamline and focus on the analytics and presents a roadmap for implementing such analytics in business.

Reboot your entrepreneurial spirit and excel in the digital age The days of being locked into a single career for life are long gone. It's time to reinvent yourself, transform your life and work the new economy for everything it's worth. With the industrial age quickly vanishing in the rearview mirror, Think Like a Startup is your instruction manual for hacking your mind and acquiring the skills to take control of your life and fortunes in the digital age. Inspirational, subversive, and with a wealth of insightful guidance, Think Like a Startup will help you to break from a lifetime of legacy programming and take full advantage of the technology revolution.

ABOUT THE BOOK Each new startup I help take to market offers many potential rewards, but there are risks too. The most obvious reward is the financial upside of equity in a successful company. But there are less tangible benefits like the thrill of being part of a team realizing the potential of their vision. Probably the most important long-term reward is that each startup success enhances my reputation and opens doors to additional startups with strong potential - while improving the skills I need to maximize these opportunities. This allows me to continue doing the most enjoyable "job" of my life. But the risks are very real. A startup in a bad space with a bad product won't be much fun to market - and I'll probably fail. And when the company flops, it will damage my reputation. Enough damage to my reputation and I'll have to figure out a new pursuit. Of course most people recognize that it's impossible to have a perfect startup record, but the opportunity cost of committing to the wrong startup means I won't have the bandwidth to take on a potentially hot company. Given these rewards and risks, I increasingly find myself evaluating opportunities with a VC-like diligence. I've created an opportunity assessment worksheet that identifies key risks in the business. The standard format makes it easier to compare opportunities. One of the biggest risks of any business is the inability to raise capital, so early on, I set the requirement that I'll only work with companies that have recently raised a series A or large seed round. A very good VC can also help improve the odds, as they've achieved a better track record with their historical picks (and many would argue their "added value"). Beyond general business risks, I obviously need to be confident that it is a marketable business and one on which I can make a meaningful impact. The ideal category is what I refer to as a "disruptor" startup. These are businesses that enter an existing category with a breakthrough feature or very disruptive pricing model. My iterative, metrics driven marketing approach is perfect for helping these types of businesses discover their ideal market, differentiate appropriately and identify viable customer acquisition drivers. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Demand Harvesting - The Easiest Driver For Startups I always begin a new startup marketing assignment by looking for any untapped existing demand. Demand harvesting is much easier than demand creation - and it has a faster sales cycle. You don't have to convince someone they need your category of product, you just need to be easier to find/buy and have a better value proposition than the other guys. The first question to ask is "where would someone seek my product category?" Twenty years ago the most obvious answer would have been the yellow pages, but today it is Google. A lot of information has been published on getting the most out of SEO or SEM and there are also many experts you can tap in this area. Beyond Google, I've found it is helpful to survey existing users for other places they would potentially look. It's great news when discover healthy demand for your product category. The next step is to analyze the solutions competing for that demand. The best situation is to discover heavy unmet demand and no competition. That is about as likely as winning the lottery, so don't count on it. More realistically, there will be a few companies with varying offers competing for that demand. In this case, you should hope for weak execution from these existing competitors. If you can be significantly more effective at extracting money from each prospect, you can afford a more prominent promotion at the initial point of connection and begin capturing market share. Buy the book to read more! CHAPTER OUTLINE ...and much more