Transitioningto Lean

@DhruvBansal @JimEngland @TimGasper

We’re in a predicament with DATA.

DATAis the raw materials

DATAinvolves many markets and data types

DATAinvolves a wide variety of customersin undefined markets

how does Infochimpsfit into the data landscape?

Data marketplaceSocial media influenceIP intelligenceGeolocated data

our existing products

Our lean mission is to determinesolutions to must-have problems for sizable markets.

foursquare data derivativessocial media solutions

new product hypotheses

We have a significant portion of the foursquare check-in firehose.

HYPOTHESIS

FOURSQUARE DEVSWant venue hotness and venue ID matching for their applications.

How many4sq devs

are there?

How manywould pay?

HYPOTHESIS

DIGITAL AGENCIESWant venue hotness and brand comparisons for their clients.

How manybrands want4sq metrics?

How manywould pay?

Must have Nice to have Don’t need

killing a feature isjust as important asbuilding one :)

Social media data

DEVELOPERSWanted detailed and transparentinfluence metrics and rankings.

trstrank

HYPOTHESIS

DIGITAL AGENCIESWant detailed and transparentinfluence metrics and rankings.

interviews later...15+

Digital agencies actually wantedanalytics research tools and dashboards.

That’s not our market.

That’s not a feature set we’ve ever built.

Leverages stuff we know, but little of what we’ve built.

Sends the company in a very different direction.PROB

LEM

S

you’ve found a market and a product; should you build it?

Learn from and measure what youalready have.

Diagnose whether to pivot or persevere.

Product

Strategy

Vision

Optimization

Pivot

You shouldn’t define where to pivot tounless you know why you should pivot.

You can only know why if...

1 2 3 4

Clearly defined hypotheses.1

2 Clearly defined actionable metrics.vs. vanity metrics

You’ve been experimenting and optimizing.

3

4 The experimenting and optimizingstill has you short of your goals ofcreating a sustainable business.

Pivots are a change in strategy.

The lean canvas provides a powerfulstrategy framework.

ERIC RIESSTRATEGY

Product roadmap

Customer definition

Partners & competitors

Business model

ASH MAURYALEAN CANVAS

Problem, solution & key metrics

Customer segments & channels

Value proposition, unfair competitive advantage

Cost structure & revenue streams

the bottom line

Lean is more straightforward if youstart with it from the beginning.

If you haven’t been lean, you mustrevisit the past.

Move through the loop faster.

data web

TWO USE CASES, ONE WEBSITE

developersdata scientists

DATA SCIENTISTSbusiness analysts, marketers, consultants, economists, statisticians, etc.

We provide data scientists accessto data through downloadable data sets.

We provide developers accessto data through RESTful APIs.

DATA SCIENTISTS?

NO PROBLEMDownloadable data sets followa typical web flow

homepagedata set pagesearch results

blogtwitter

signup

download

MULTI-STEP

DEVELOPERS?

IT’S COMPLICATEDAPI usage funnel involves many steps and is more difficult to track & define

homepagedata set pagesearch results

blogtwitter

signup

new developer

new developer

active developer

A developer becomes active when they send over 1,000 API calls per month.

How do we convert a developer to an active developer?

HOWTOsCODE EXAMPLES

DATA SET PAGESAPI REFERENCE

homepagedata set pagesearch results

blogtwitter

signup

howto guidecode exampleapi referencedata set pagesearch results

activeuser

PLUS

We need to connect user activity on the website with user activity on our APIs.

TECHNICAL PROBLEM

GOOGLE ANALYTICS CUSTOM VARIABLES

TO THE RESCUE

SOLUTION

We use Google Analytics to track visitor behavior on our websites.

There are a lot of other options

• Cookie, JS-based data collection• No servers to maintain• APIs for reports

•Without JS, client-side behavior is a mystery

•Lots of work•Potentially awesome

Web Data

One identity is known to us. The other is known to Google.

?

Web Data

Google stores 3 cookies:

VISITORexpires after 2 years

SESSIONexpires after 30 minutes

PAGEset on every pageview

UsernameFirst seen atSegmentOriginal traffic sourceMilestones

• Signed up• Downloaded• Searched• Bought• Queried

Visitor VariablesMilestones

• Signed up• Downloaded• Searched• Bought• Queried

Session VariablesCategoryCompletenessPricingDistribution

Page Variables

CUSTOMVARIABLES

Visitor Variables

c=201110;ms=dev;ds=1;sd=1;u=dhruv

First seen in October, 2011 (c)Is a developer (ms)Has seen a dataset (ds)Has done a search (sd)Username is ‘dhruv’ (u)

WE CAN GET THIS DATA OVER THE WEB.

WE CAN GET THIS DATA THROUGH AN API.

Web Data

developersdevelopers

developersdevelopers

The web team’s goal is to increasethe number of active API users.

But we don’t have a traditional funnelfor converting these users.

So, we started by focusing on theoverall site experience for developers.

to LeanTRANSITIONING

We haven’t run any experimentson the website... yet.

web experiments

brainstorm

Developer-centric email campaigns1

Improved “getting started” dashboard2

http://twilio.com/user/account

Improved search experience3

thank you@DhruvBansal@JimEngland@TimGasper