Startup Metrics: Anecdotes vs. Analytics

I am a big fan of data, but there is no substitute for talking with your customers. I had to choose just one, I’d take customer knowledge over data because it will tell you what’s next, and why…data will just tell you what’s better without explaining why, so it won’t show a path to the next breakthrough, or lead you to product market fit.

So…start working those support lines!

This article talks about anecdotes vs analytics, but in the end, it advocates anecdotes and analytics. It feels like anecdotes give you a gut feeling of where the opportunities are and that analytics give the gut feeling some substantive backing. Companies need to understand and use both types.

I am a firm believer of What Get Measured, Get Done. The same is for website, when you measure and understand what works and what dun. You are definitely able to come up with more ways to do things better.

I've been looking at this qualitative vs quantitative tradeoff for a recent analytics project.

We've adopted the general framework in Getting to Plan B - using 'Leap of Faith' questions to hone various hypotheses using qualitative data. Eventually when you characterize enough assumptions from qualitative inputs, you are left with a set of concrete measures you can use quantitative analytics to measure.

Would be curious what approaches others are using to balance this relationship.