Data is almost never complete it seldom tells the WHOLE story, but it is the science and my job is the art.

The art is to figure out what it does tell you and what it doesn’t tell you.  Trace the connectors; identify the threads; debunk causation; question correlation.  The hardest part is the best part- you don’t even know what you don’t know.  That is the “find a dinosaur bone and determine what they ate” challenge.  For me this is a very satisfying and rewarding experience- but for some it is frustrating and demotivating.  I love “figuring things out”;  solving problems and challenges that every set of data presents is like a new jigsaw puzzle to unfold.  But instead of ending up with great collage of cats, I drive revenue, conversions and effect change.  In startup life that is why we show up every day.

Example usage : “Man, that’s just a coastal app, no one wants to geo-locate their dog in Chicago.”

Start-ups are the opposite- they are sponges, they are chameleons. Better yet, they are gelatin. They have no natural or discernable flavors, they absorb from whatever is added to their composition. Start-ups are the quintessential nurture that become whatever and whomever you put in them. If you don’t like what you made- you can add more of what you are lacking, remove ingredients that didn’t work or rebalance the whole pie. It’s painful and can be hard but doable.

With a kid you grip it and rip it and hope to do the best with your genetic cocktail and shape him/her as you can. But with a start-up you pick the end game first and work backward carefully and slowly to build your baby.