The rules of the passion economy

Summary of the main messages from the book The Passion Economy by Adam Davidson.

June 12, 2024

Startup data health starts with healthy event tracking

Expanding on the startup health check question of tracking Kukuyeva’s five business aspects as wide events.

June 10, 2024

How to avoid startups with poor development processes

Questions that prospective data specialists and engineers should ask about development processes before accepting a startup role.

June 3, 2024

Plumbing, Decisions, and Automation: De-hyping Data & AI

Three essential questions to understand where an organisation stands when it comes to Data & AI (with zero hype).

May 27, 2024

Adapting to the economy of algorithms

Overview of the book The Economy of Algorithms by Marek Kowalkiewicz.

May 25, 2024

Question startup culture before accepting a data-to-AI role

Eight questions that prospective data-to-AI employees should ask about a startup’s work and data culture.

May 20, 2024

Probing the People aspects of an early-stage startup

Ten questions that prospective employees should ask about a startup’s team, especially for data-centric roles.

May 13, 2024

Business questions to ask before taking a startup data role

Fourteen questions that prospective employees should ask about a startup’s business model and product, especially for data-focused roles.

May 6, 2024

Mentorship and the art of actionable advice

Reflections on what it takes to package expertise and deliver timely, actionable advice outside the context of employee relationships.

April 29, 2024

Assessing a startup's data-to-AI health

Reviewing the areas that should be assessed to determine a startup’s opportunities and challenges on the data/AI/ML front.

April 22, 2024

LinkedIn is a teachable skill

An high-level overview of things I learned from Justin Welsh’s LinkedIn Operating System course.

April 11, 2024

The three Cs of indie consulting: Confidence, Cash, and Connections

Jonathan Stark makes a compelling argument why you should have the three Cs before quitting your job to go solo consulting.

February 17, 2024

Substance over titles: Your first data hire may be a data scientist

Advice for hiring a startup’s first data person: match skills to business needs, consider contractors, and get help from data people.

February 5, 2024

Psychographic specialisations may work for discipline generalists

When focusing on a market segment defined by personal beliefs, it’s often fine to position yourself as a generalist in your craft.

January 9, 2024

The power of parasocial relationships

Repeated exposure to media personas creates relationships that help justify premium fees.

January 8, 2024

Positioning is a common problem for data scientists

With the commodification of data scientists, the problem of positioning has become more common: My takeaways from Genevieve Hayes interviewing Jonathan Stark.

December 18, 2023

The lines between solo consulting and product building are blurry

It turns out that problems like finding a niche and defining the ideal clients are key to any solo business.

September 25, 2023

The Minimalist Entrepreneur is too prescriptive for me

While I found the story of Gumroad interesting, The Minimalist Entrepreneur seems to over-generalise from the founder’s experience.

August 21, 2023

Revisiting Start Small, Stay Small in 2023 (Chapter 2)

A summary of the second chapter of Rob Walling’s Start Small, Stay Small, along with my thoughts & reflections.

August 17, 2023

Revisiting Start Small, Stay Small in 2023 (Chapter 1)

A summary of the first chapter of Rob Walling’s Start Small, Stay Small, along with my thoughts & reflections.

August 16, 2023

Software commodities are eating interesting data science work

Being a data scientist can sometimes feel like a race against software commodities that replace interesting work. What can one do to remain relevant?

January 11, 2020

Defining data science in 2018

Updating my definition of data science to match changes in the field. It is now broader than before, but its ultimate goal is still to support decisions.

July 22, 2018

Customer lifetime value and the proliferation of misinformation on the internet

There’s a lot of misleading content on the estimation of customer lifetime value. Here’s what I learned about doing it well.

January 8, 2017

If you don’t pay attention, data can drive you off a cliff

Seven common mistakes to avoid when working with data, such as ignoring uncertainty and confusing observed and unobserved quantities.

August 21, 2016

Is Data Scientist a useless job title?

It seems like anyone who touches data can call themselves a data scientist, which makes the title useless. The work they do can still be useful, though.

August 4, 2016

You don’t need a data scientist (yet)

Hiring data scientists prematurely is wasteful and frustrating. Here are some questions to ask before you hire your first data scientist.

August 24, 2015

The long road to a lifestyle business

Progress since leaving my last full-time job and setting on an independent path that includes data science consulting and work on my own projects.

March 22, 2015

BCRecommender Traction Update

Update on BCRecommender traction using three channels: blogger outreach, search engine optimisation, and content marketing.

November 5, 2014

Applying the Traction Book’s Bullseye framework to BCRecommender

Ranking 19 channels with the goal of getting traction for BCRecommender.

September 24, 2014

Data’s hierarchy of needs

Discussing the hierarchy of needs proposed by Jay Kreps. Key takeaway: Data-driven algorithms & insights can only be as good as the underlying data.

August 17, 2014