The concept of "data-driven decision making" has been around for more than 10 years. Nearly every organization that I worked for has purchased purchased a BI tool at one point in time; hoping to generate new insights from their user data.
Yes, BI tools are great, especially when it comes to getting complex data analyses done. As a product manager, I always relied on them for uncovering new learnings and creating complex reports. But truth be told; they suck at one thing – giving instant access to simple metrics.
I can't recall the number of times I just needed a quick answer to a major KPI but would have to go through hoops to get it. So I did my research with the hopes to find a tool that would give me give me instant access to my top-level metrics - but I failed...
Below is a quick overview of what BI tools are good and terrible at:
I would ask myself,
“Isn’t there a tool that allows me to connect to my data sources with one click and access my metrics in mere seconds?”
I could not find one, so eventually, I built Datapad.
In this article, I will share the problems we aim to solve with Datapad, including:
Do you recall your preparations before weekly/monthly/yearly meetings? They typically involve manually pulling data from all your data sources and consolidating everything on a sheet.
Even though you can automate some of this process, you still have to enter some data manually, which is time-consuming and super boring.
It’s seriously hard to consolidate operational metrics like NPS scores, revenue, costs, and live metrics in a BI tool.
BI tools excel at providing complex analyses, but they are not great at providing easy and quick access to your top-level metrics.
Sometimes it takes hours to get to your top-level metrics, maybe even more if your technical know-how is limited to excel. What if you need instant access to your metrics during a company or investor meeting? BI tools won’t give you that instant access.
Some BI tools have mobile apps, but most people don’t use them. Why? Because you would spend your life making pinching actions on your mobile device and wouldn’t have enough time to check your metrics. BI tools have a terrible mobile experience.
I think the main problem is that BI tools are hard for the average user to navigate. That’s why people shy away from interacting with data.
Most teams track operational metrics like NPS scores. But it’s incredibly difficult to input an offline piece of data into a BI tool. You usually need help from an expert to make that happen.
Spoiler Alert: You don’t need to get help from your data team to connect Datapad to your data sources. We created a setup process that would take five minutes of your time.
With Datapad, you can easily connect to your data source and start pulling your metrics into a centralized metrics hub.
Below you can see how easy it is to connect to your drive, choose a sheet, and start importing your data into Datapad to create a visualization.
Right now, we only have one-click integration with Google Sheets. However, we are expanding into other platforms such as Hubspot, GA, and Intercom, among others.
Update Metrics Manually
Some metrics would be overkill to connect to data sources. I have always had a problem connecting data sources to get metrics such as NPS scores and HR-related metrics. I would have to put everything to sheets manually, and updating those sheets would be a huge pain.
With Datapad, you can easily enter your metrics manually and update them through the app.
After you complete the initial setup, you can “Google Search” any metric you want through Datapad and have a visualization in seconds. All you need to do is search for the metric.
You don’t need to ask for the updated version of the metric you are looking for. Instead, whenever there is an update in your chosen metrics, you and the rest of your team will receive a notification.
For example, if you are consistently asking for updates on churn data, you can set up a notification for it, and you and your team will be notified whenever the metric changes.
You can start discussions around your metrics by commenting and tagging people under each metric.
For example, if you get a notification about a change in customer acquisition cost, you can comment under the metric and tag the person responsible for the metric to investigate the change
Datapad exists to make data access super fast, we believe that it should only take seconds to access your metrics not minutes or hours and your whole team should be able to collaborate around metrics.
We are currently on a waitlist and you can sign up from here!
