Over the past ten years, I have been fortunate to work with over 100 entrepreneurs. Regardless of their geographic location, product, financial situation, or industry experience, they all have one thing in common: customer acquisition keeps them up at night. To fuel customer acquisition, companies spend relentless efforts to build…

Discover what your customers look like and what and how they like to buy at scale — Imagine operating a business with a diverse customer portfolio spread out geographically with differing income levels. Your customers purchase distinct products via various channels. As an operator, you want to fully understand what your customers look like and what and how they like to buy. However, you have tens of…

Leveraging data science to define your ideal customer profile (ICP) — In Seizing the Low-Hanging Fruit in Business with Data Science, I mentioned that companies would gain tremendous growth opportunities by cutting back on underperforming initiatives. Across industries, these failing initiatives start with the wrong audience. For example, if a gadget startup tries to win over conservative consumers, its campaigns will…

Today I want to share a seemingly common-sense yet often-ignored data science finding — Companies will gain tremendous growth opportunities by simply cutting back budgets on initiatives that are not working — the low-hanging fruit in business. I once worked as a data scientist in a startup. Most of the startup’s revenue came from inbound leads. Although there were satisfying numbers of leads coming…

Offline marketing and sales channels are returning, and you need to adapt — As customer acquisition costs on digital media continue to soar, more and more consumer brands look to diversify their marketing spending. Brands are re-evaluating traditional channels like TV, radio, in-store marketing, etc. However, data tracking is limited for these channels. …

Gain a better understanding of the bigger picture by building a data system that generates powerful insights — Companies invest in data science only because it serves their critical paths — generating revenue or saving costs. Data science is unique in its ability to automatically uncover viable approaches by analyzing history. This ability supercharges customer acquisition, a key piece in the critical path. Companies can acquire customers much…

As B2B companies shift to product-led growth, getting inbound leads becomes key to driving revenue. But companies now have a new challenge. — As B2B companies shift to product-led growth, getting inbound leads becomes key to driving revenue. Many companies write blogs, host events, and provide free trials to generate demands. While these activities increase traffic, companies now have a new challenge to differentiate potential customers from the crowd. Since serving prospects cost…

A few years ago, I worked in a new business in a public company. At the end of the first year, I worked on the annual review with the cofounder. Everything seemed great until the financial forecast showed the new business would not generate the results as management expected from…