Data revolution — how Jacob is changing the way humans interact with data
Kitesurfing on a sunny day meets pragmatic analytical math. Meet Jacob. A passionate self-made man on a mission to revolutionize how we interact with data. Whether it’s a rational discussion at work or a philosophical conversation in a bar, Jacob’s up for the challenge.
Hi Jacob, welcome to Antler.
Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background in general?
I come from a data background centered around data analytics and I’ve tapped into engineering sections and product ownership. I started to work in the startup world, and I’ve been in it almost exclusively. Having started as a physics and sound engineering student, I quit after a while which gave me a long time to figure out my life — which I used to teach myself how to code. Eventually, I joined the startup world through a friend of mine who worked in “Movinga”, and felt the cultural shock by moving from a laboratory to big rooms where people have calls and build PowerPoint presentations. From that point on, I became interested in Business Intelligence and tried to figure out what I need to do in order to get into that role. I went to Brazil to work in a friend’s small family business for half a year, where I taught myself SQL and got a matching certificate (yes, a certificate). I came back to Berlin, applied for Business Intelligence jobs, and fortunately got the target I was aiming for — Business Intelligence at Zalando.
What was your first job and what did you learn from it?
I learned a lot because it was a very unique startup — “Movinga”. Also, the founders were just leaving university to start the company, meaning they were considerably young and inexperienced. On the other hand, the startup was exploding (in a good way) going in the first year from 0 to 500 employees — that’s how fast they scaled. During their first year, they also opened up in five European markets. All this rapid expansion also translated into some issues and pitfalls leading Movinga to eventually closing off half of the company. In my view, that was mostly related to quick and dirty processes required to cope with the rapid growth and management losing track of what was happening in their own company — they were partly oblivious to the depth issues that were arising in the company. There were big issues with the processes — as they had an offline business — and they were paying a lot of money to advisors while struggling to apply their recommendations — which eventually contributed to the increasing chaos. The learning was that if you have experienced people honestly giving you feedback, try to internalize it and apply it in the best way possible.
Another important take for me is that as young founders, we should try to make sure that we keep track of issues and that we have a process to internalize and solve them if we are scaling rapidly because losing track of problems is easy and dangerous. You can’t manage what you can’t measure!!
The last major take I got from my experience is that as a founder you can’t solely focus on revenue growth and neglect the rest of the structure. When I was at Movinga, in a team of 500 people, only a handful were software engineers.
How did you find out about Antler, and what made you apply?
I dropped out of my last job because my family was growing — my second son was born and I took time off. Since I dropped my job, I found myself slowly working on my own project, which I had already been working on for the past three years. I had it boiling in the background when I finally started spending one or two hours a day on the idea and shaping it into something serious. Eventually, the time grew to spending half a day on it and me deciding: “I’m not going back to a job, I will invest into this one”. And I actually think it’s the right time to go to market with my idea — there is a market opportunity for a data product and the investment sentiment is really positive. So, I built my plan, and while searching for programs that could help in scaling up my idea, I found Antler and I submitted my application. Just from the looks of it, I thought it provided a really, really valuable package, while still leaving me in control — because incubators and accelerators tend to have a really fixed program. In this sense, Antler got my attention due to their differentiated approach which revolves around getting the right team first (then the product). Afterwards came the interview process through which I got an even better impression. I finally got the offer and it was clear to me that I had to give it a try.
What are you currently working on and where do you want to be by the end of the year?
When I started to invest a little more time on my project, I figured out that it is really well connected to a concept called Data mesh, which is the next buzzer in the data community. I started having roundtables and expanding my network which led me to confirm that my framework idea matches this data mesh concept. So I am trying to figure out how I can actually expand that into a data platform product. What I’m building is a platform that covers the data process from end to end — from data ingestion, through data treatment, to further data output that is ready for usage. The value proposition lies both in the integration of all the data processes into a single tool, that is easy to use (no-code) while automating it as much as possible so consumers can get to the insight much quicker and self-serve if they want to. I really want to make sure to build something that is relevant not just for data people but everyone who interacts with data. Being ‘the starting point for data’ to think it the Zalando way.
And I want to help the community to make that transition to the new data mesh paradigm with a formalized best practice (framework) and automation (API calls), so even scale-ups can apply a decentralized setup immediately.
What are some of your passions, both professionally and personally?
I’ve been a musician since I was nine years old. That’s definitely a thing that has always fed into my life and is probably never gonna leave. I don’t take it too seriously though. I was recently part of a band just enjoying my time playing with them. My family is very into music — every family member plays an instrument. I play drums, percussion, and hang drums.
In the unconference session we had in week 2, we had a music room so I went home and got all the musical instruments I had in my kid’s room. I also brought my hang drum and it turned out to be quite funny.
I think most people will recognize this as being my main gig. What many people don’t know is I’m actually kiting longer than playing music. I believe I was six or seven years old when I started kiting — we always went to the same place for vacation, just to do that. Unfortunately, I don’t get to do it too often anymore, but just recently I learned how to kitesurf.
The next step for me would be to go wingsuit — I want to fucking fly!
Also, gaming is a big part of me. I definitely play less than previously in my life, but still, I’m somewhat into it occasionally. Mostly strategic games and card games, but also pen and paper games like ‘Das Schwarze Auge’.
I do like to get into the flow state which requires me to put on some techno music, zoom into the computer, and crack some problems, either through code or just theoretically.
I’m an extroverted person to some degree so I gain from social environments, but I also like time for myself, especially when it comes down to coding.
On a professional note, I’ve worked a lot in logistics having worked with logistic data and SaaS, but I have not necessarily been bound to it. I’m very much in love with the data topic which I believe to be related to me. Especially because I’m self-taught on this, which already shows I’m doing what I love. For me, this whole process of solving the entire data department — preferably automated — is huge for me and I see it as a very realistic possibility. This whole AI automation topic that everybody seems to know we are facing, if it hits somewhere early, I do believe it’s going to be data.
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