Tweet

Daily Data

Written by: Brad Feld

Article Overview: I had a call this morning with a CEO of a young company I’m on the board of. They are well funded so they have plenty of urgency, but no panic, around what they are doing. During the conversation, he asked what he could do to increase the board member’s visibility of the progress they are making.

Daily Data

I had a call this morning with a CEO of a young company I’m on the board of. They are well funded so they have plenty of urgency, but no panic, around what they are doing. During the conversation, he asked what he could do to increase the board member’s visibility of the progress they are making.

I told him to start sending out “daily data”. There is a lot of data flowing through their system and there are several different dimensions of growth that are easy to measure. Rather than hand collecting stuff, I encouraged him to automate all of this right now, while the company is young. It can be web-based data (which I’d just toss in my daily information routine) or better yet emailed to me so it shows up with other reports like this in my daily folder.

Many of the companies I’m involved in do this. A lot of them provide the data weekly, although I always prefer to get it daily as I feel more engaged and can synthesize the trends better. I also notice the step function changes a lot better when I’m seeing the data stream by on a daily basis.

An example of what I’m talking about is the Lijit Stats Robot. Every day I get an email from the Lijit Stats Robot that includes the following daily data:

* Total signups
* # users who visited the site
* # of non-users who visited the site
* Sign-up conversion rate
* # of searches
* # of Re-searches
* # of Re-searches from other search engines
* # of Re-Searches from Lijit
* # active search Wijits
* # Wijit views
* # unique Wijit views
* # distinct publishers searched
* # distinct publishers Re-Searched
* Top 10 publishers searched
* Top 10 Wijit views
* List of new publishers (and where they came from)

Another example would be the data I see every day from Gyminee

* Users
* Actives
* % Active
* Paying
* Trial
* % Paying
* Cancel Rate
* Projected Revenue for the Qtr
* Views
* Monthly Views
* Unique Visitors
* Monthly Unique Visitors

Obviously both of these data sets are trending data sets so I see the trend rollup monthly, but by getting to see the daily data a quick glance can often generate an interesting insight. It also causes me to spend at least ten seconds thinking about the company each day, which probably serves the CEO well as it increases the likelihood that I’ll notice something else throughout the day that might be helpful to him.

Read this post in Brad's blog.

Related Articles
  Data Loss - The Scariest Term in Business Today
  Reasons & Sources for Business Data Collection
  Analytics- A Marketing Managers Friend or Foe?
  10 Hard Drive File Recovery Tips
  Data processing Requirements

Article Tags: active search, board members, cancel, ceo, conversion rate, daily basis, data stream, datai, email, other search engines, publishers, robot, urgency, visibility, wijit



Related Forum Posts
Re: Is any one making money with twitter here? - Daily activity is a MUST. I spend between 20-40 min a day on twitter building followers and relationships.
Re: Does Your Website Have a Robots.txt File? - HI Carol, Your robot file is correct; no lets work on your Page Titles & Meta Data. Do you have access to create different page titles for each page of your website? Do you have your FTP information...please do not post it here but just let me know if you have access. Jeff
Re: What I Enjoyed Reading This Week - June 11 - Hi Evan, Thank you for the reading material. I look forward to the general release later this month as outlined in the 'Google Analytics To Add Search Query Data From Webmaster Tools' article. Anything that helps us to understand maximise extra data from Google Analytics can only be of benefit. regards, Mal.
I want to start a CARTRIDGE business Need help - Hi, I am 20 years old, and looking to open up a cartridges business. I would like to know the markup on say.. HP Canon, Brother and other cartridges. It seems that Staples, office depot and other big companies sell them at regular retial price, I have come accross several websites, that sell them for reasonable prices. I am in contact with Tech Data (probably will open an account) I just want to know the general markup on cartridges? Thanks
Re: What are your January Goals? - Here's a quick update on mine: Goal #1: Hire New Writer = done - Post job description on oDesk - Set up trial job - Pick top candidate Goal #2: Follow up with Clients = done - Create and send quarterly report - Touch base with last year's clients - Follow up with 4 connectors Goal #3: PERSONAL = about 70% done on the month - Do something nice for my wife each week - Exercise 4 times per week - Daily stretch - want to touch my toes


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Earn More Money - Easy Home Business Ideas

Adapting to Technology and the Internet

Avoid Burnout: Do the Limbo Regularly

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.