Why I Founded a Company to Solve My Own Problems……And You Should Too

Once upon a time……

I was on my way to a board meeting after finishing up a very mediocre workout, where my mind was occupied by a number of personal and business specific questions. The office was only a 5 min walk away, which did not leave me much time to get some answers for these questions. I was specifically looking for answers on 3 very random, but very relevant things (2 personal, 1 business):

1. What are all the monthly recurring payments on my personal VISA?
2. What are the 100 and 200 moving day averages of Enbridge and Transcanada shares?
3. What is the monthly mean, min, max sale per product per geography for the last fiscal year?

Question #1 Background

Like many people, I am willing to give something a try. There are a lot of great products out there now that are usually some type of subscription model. One in particular called Texture, is an app i had for the iPad that gave me subscriptions to a number of different magazines of interest, and was substantially more cost effective than individual subscriptions. The problem was, I had very limited time, being a new father, to enjoy these magazines and therefore the value I originally saw in the subscription was now gone. I will be honest, I do not thoroughly review my VISA statements, so simple $9.99 per month charges get lost in the shuffle of noticing much larger transactions. Out of principle however, none of us want to pay for something we do not use and quite naturally if I was still subscribed to this recurring payment, I wanted it ended.

Question #2 Background

As the pipeline companies were being beat up by the various government interventions, I was hoping to find a little value somewhere along the line in the stock markets. I do not want to spend time on a personal investment thesis, but I was interested in potentially making a trade if the price was right. Two I had done ok with in the past, were Enbridge and Transcanada. Moving averages were one of the metrics I looked at and I was interested in a comparison between the two.

Question #3 Background

It is quite natural when preparing for a meeting that there are some pieces of information you either 1) did not think of, or 2) did not have the time to get. In our current business world of being “dashboarded to death” (maybe a discussion for another time), often we are left with more questions after seeing the updated dashboards. The answers normally have to be deferred until more information can be gathered and analyzed. Back at the gym, I was curious if there was any importance in the seasonality of our product portfolio geographically, while keeping in mind not only averages, but the ranges as well. Once at the meeting there were numerous other questions that came to mind that had to be deferred until a later time where the data could be extracted from the applicable system and then analyzed. Something i am sure many of you experience probably on a daily basis.

My 5 min Walk

The result of my 5 min walk was that I got absolutely nothing accomplished toward answering any 3 of these questions.

After the board meeting was done and I was at home, I logged into my personal banking site to access my VISA statements and had to separately read the different transactions and different amounts to match up any recurring payments. It happened that there were recurring charges for Netflix and diapers from Amazon :) but nothing related to Texture (Question #1). After that was done, I logged in to my trading site and had to go through a cumbersome interface in order to answer Question #2 (don’t get me started on the mess of keyword search and dropdown menus). Note: I actually did not end up buying either, and they both have performed quite well since then (cue the laughing of my banking buddies). To answer question #3, I actually had to write some Python code a couple days later that would take the data export from the company’s applicable database system, import it to a format I could analyze, and then run the applicable functions to achieve what I wanted to know, including visualizations of the results.

Questions #1 and #2 were just a complete pain in the butt to do and took way longer then they needed to. For question #3, I was fortunate to have taken an interest in data science and machine learning a few years ago and learned to write code to achieve data questions I had. The alternative to coding a script would have been to use good ol’ Excel, where if you are not a proficient user (which many think they are, but really are not…..me included) you can fumble around for quite some time.

What My 5 min Walk Should Have Been

Amongst the various points of frustration, it dawned on me that the questions I had going through my inner monologue should be the same ones I could simply type into a message line and get the answers I wanted. I wanted a solution that would understand what I am trying to achieve and do it for me, all through natural language. Because I have used many other software products in my life (personal banking, accounting, finance, supply chain, CRM’s, fantasy sports, etc.) I wanted this solution to be available for integration into all those products as well. The vast majority of the population will not take the time to become spreadsheet experts or learn to write their own software. A large percentage still uses paper and calculators to perform tasks that should be infinitely easier to achieve.

After discussing these areas of pain with a variety of family, friends, and colleagues, it was evident that my problems were the same as everyone else when it came to interacting with data. Thus, chata.ai was born.

My 5 min walk should have consisted of me pulling my phone out and having a simple messaging line to text these questions into, and have it return the information that I was looking for.

The Takeaway

There is not one day that goes by we all wish something was a lot easier to do. Take these opportunities to really think about what it is you are trying to accomplish and seek out those who are able to empathize with the situation. Find out how they handle these situations and you will learn so much about the potential opportunity to 1) find something out there currently you can use to better accomplish your task or 2) create something new (and hopefully a business around it) that just might make your, and everyone else’s, life a little bit easier.

I hope all of you experience your own 5 min walk.