Ask HN: What does it mean to be a data driven company?

1 pointmr_t3 comments

What would you do different if you are "data driven"? Is it just another buzzword, or are there actual differences in the way you operate your company?

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It means that all projects and discussions are based on metrics collected by the products.

For example, to increase daily active users for an app the company might shuffle the UI. Then carry out a/b testing and based on the data make it permanent. Everything is based on data.

Sometimes it is easy to get "trapped" too. That the company focuses so much on a particular metric that they completely miss the big picture.

Thanks for the reply! What I just don't understand is, doesn't that mean every company is more or less data driven? I'd assume most companies act according to some key metrics they collect.

Not necessarily, some are driven by customer demand, some by community features or some by investors. It depends on the stage of the company too. An early stage start up sometimes simply does not have enough bandwidth for metrics. Slightly more mature startups can begin to base project based decisions on data.

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