If there’s one thing that grinds Amanda Richardson’s gears, it’s fads.
As Chief Data and Strategy Officer for HotelTonight (she was previously their VP Product), she oversees 400 to 500 data events for an app with millions of monthly users. Her team registers hundreds of events from every user session. She’s steeped in the data world and is a keen observer of how other companies are increasingly leveraging data to make decisions. But what she sees are a number of trends and approaches to data that aren’t just lazy, but also ineffective, misleading, and costing companies a ton of opportunity.
In this exclusive interview, Richardson points out four of these approaches that data teams industry-wide should watch out for, and how leaders can break from the pack to better serve their strategic goals. Specifically, she describes how she built her current team to mimic the product teams she's led for years. And she explains why creating next-generation products has a lot more to do with simplicity, consistency and consensus than leveraging the hottest new thing.
Data is more available than ever before. Collecting, storing and analyzing it have become standard practices at most companies. But all too often, lost in the scramble for real-time analytics and data lakes is a coherent and straightforward plan for what to do with all of these numbers. Richardson has seen many a team aimlessly digging through data, looking for the story. With no clear point of view, though, they’re left chasing a moving target.
“You need to start with a specific question to answer or hypothesis to investigate,” she says. “A lot of times, people will launch a product and then say, ‘How's it doing?’ Rather than saying, ‘Our product goal is to convert from this to this. Or grow the top of funnel or move the bottom of the funnel. Or increase our revenue per user.’”
Without a clear and agreed-upon goal, you run the risk of rewriting history as the data comes in. Take HotelTonight’s Favorites Feature that allows users to 'favorite' hotels they want to call up first during searches. “Is that for our power users? Is it for new people who may not like the serendipity of HotelTonight and want to follow a specific hotel? Is it for people planning a trip who want a watchlist feature?” says Richardson. “Those are all possibilities. But what's the key metric that's going to determine success? Without that clarity, you end up with a situation where one person is saying, ‘This was great for our most popular users, who favorite an average of 12 hotels’ and another is saying ‘But this was intended for new users.’ And you’re thinking, ‘Was it?’”
The key to effectively consuming data is to clearly stipulate what you’re trying to accomplish and how you’ll define success. But that’s easier said than done. “Everyone agrees at 60,000 feet. But once you take it into the details — 'What are we going to high-five over in 30 days?' — people are not clear.”
So make things clear. Create the scorecard by which you’ll judge success. “The discipline is to have something written down before every project gets started.” Richardson cites a classic shorthand for effective goal-setting. “It’s that old SMART acronym: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely.”
When it comes to setting that all-important goal, she’s unequivocal: That’s one of the key responsibilities of a startup’s founders. “It’s the job of the leader to say, ‘We're going to climb Everest.’ It's the job of the team to figure out the best path up Everest and the requirements for each team member. But particularly at an early-stage company, it’s not fair to leave it to the product manager to set these strategic priorities.”