Data-Driven Work Cultures: Nicholas Freund of Workstream On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level
An Interview With Pierre Brunelle
Hire a data team. Establish a dedicated data analytics team to serve as the decision-making nerve center for your organization. Without that, you’ll be flying blind.
As part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Freund.
Nicholas Freund is a seasoned SaaS industry executive with over a decade of experience leading startups focused on product-led growth. As Founder and CEO of Workstream.io, Nick spearheads a seed-stage technology startup that helps data teams manage critical data assets. By integrating directly with the analytical tools data teams are already using in their regular workflow, it empowers data teams and the entire business to use data assets in a more effective way. Prior to Workstream, Nick served as VP of Operations for BetterCloud, an independent software vendor that offers the leading SaaS Operations Management solution. Previously, Nick held senior finance positions at Tesla, while earning his MBA at Harvard.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I started my career as a Financial Analyst in 2008 at Tesla, which was a company of only around 200 people at the time and was still pre-delivery on the original Tesla Roadster. My job was to support the engineering and manufacturing teams that were bringing electric cars to market. While at Tesla, I experienced some of the workflow challenges between the analytics team and the operational areas they supported. Later in my career, I became VP of Operations at BetterCloud, an independent software vendor that offers the leading SaaS Operations Management solutions. It was a very different kind of business from Tesla, and this time I was on the operations side, helping our CEO build out capabilities in various functions. I’ve always been a data-driven leader, but while I was on the operations side, I experienced some of the same friction and pain points from the perspective of business stakeholders. Both of those experiences eventually led me to found Workstream.io, my current company, which helps data teams manage critical data assets and collaborate better with business stakeholders. Seeing the workflow issues that occur from both sides inspired some ideas about how we could improve the process.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
I’m not sure how funny this is, but I definitely learned early in my career that businesses won’t always accept data-driven recommendations, because people already have very strong opinions and are unwilling to change them. For example, when I first joined Tesla in 2008 as a 23 year-old kid in the beginning of my career, I was asked to do some research about how to price the original Tesla Roadster when it was released in Japan. I put together a very data-driven recommendation, but Elon Musk not only ignored it, he actually lambasted me for it.
From that experience, I learned that even if your calculations are correct, you still have to present a compelling argument in order to influence others and get them to care about the data. And you also have to understand what your numbers mean within the context of the larger business objectives, because if you can’t connect your data to a specific goal, it won’t be taken seriously. Data doesn’t mean anything in a vacuum.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Yes, I read quite a bit. If we are talking about business literature, I would say The Hardest Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is a book that contains an incredible amount of wisdom from someone who has built a very successful company and taken it through difficult times. It’s a great reminder that there is no straight line to the top. As I was growing up, one of the books I read many times is The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcom X, Alex Haley and Attallah Shabazz. I’ve always been fascinated with the story arc of how he went to prison, then ended up as a leader of the Nation of Islam, and beyond. I’ve always been incredibly inspired by how his learning and growth mindset continued to move him forward throughout his lifetime, in unconventional ways.
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
My main focus right now is on building the Workstream.io product, which we are getting ready to launch publicly after a long private beta stage. It’s been a long journey to get to this point, working hand-in-hand with our design partners to build something for forward-thinking, innovative modern data teams. This product aims to help data teams and organizations get more out of their data. The data teams at many organizations are tasked with a lot when it comes to empowering and supporting their organizations. We’re trying to help them to manage the business facing dynamics better, so that they can use their own time more strategically, and their organizations can get more ROI out of the investments they’ve already made in data teams and technology. Workstream.io will help businesses to better leverage the amazing output of data teams at scale.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” My work centers on the value of data visualization and data collaboration at all levels of an organization. So I’m particularly interested in this topic. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?
In a lot of ways, being data-driven is about applying the scientific method to everything you do operationally on a day-to-day basis. It’s incredibly process oriented. You have a hypothesis about something–for example what you need to do in order to improve your customer acquisition funnel. Coming to a decision is a matter of proving or disproving that hypothesis. How you actually do that may take many shapes and forms, but at the end of the day, being data-driven means accepting that your opinion is less important than what the data is telling you.
In any business, there are things to be done and decisions to be made. When you get into the actual nuts and bolts of it, there are politics that come into play, vested interests, pet projects, personal agendas, etc. All of that just gets in the way of making intelligent, scientifically measured decisions. So, being data-driven means that you’ve made a commitment to choosing data as your guiding light. At a practical level, there are so many ways you can use data to make decisions. Every business should be doing this, and to do it well, everyone should care about the data, and be able to analyze and interpret it to some degree. Every person in the organization needs to have appropriate access to data, in the format that is most intuitive, in order to inform daily decision making.
Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?
Every kind of business can benefit from tools that empower data collaboration. In fact, on a 10-year time horizon, companies that aren’t data-driven will cease to exist. In a decade, it won’t be seen as a competitive advantage as much as just basic table stakes for operating. As an example, look at Amazon, one of the most data-driven companies in the world, and how it has disrupted multiple industries and business models that were not utilizing data. As another, think about how Netflix disrupted Blockbuster and took over the video rental space with a very forward-thinking data-driven approach.
The companies that are making the biggest investments in collecting, analyzing and managing their data right now are generally early adopters of enterprise software in fast-paced industries like technology, media and direct-to-consumer businesses. They typically range in size from 200–5,000 employees, with sophisticated enough business models to enable the collection of data, but enough agility to adapt and change direction as needed.
We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.
Workstream.io was started in the midst of the pandemic, which was a time of great uncertainty for all types of businesses. From the very beginning, we’ve been a fully remote, distributed company and we’ve learned firsthand how important it is to communicate and collaborate.
New data and analytics tools are pushing the trend toward additional collaboration forward, but they will only go so far if there are still underlying communication problems. Teams are looking for better ways to streamline some of those interpersonal dynamics and build more knowledge around their data. The next wave of innovation will be getting people aligned and empowered. We’ll be moving further away from the traditional paradigm of email and scheduling meetings, and more toward asynchronous workflow tools.
Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?
Unfortunately, in my personal experience I’ve seen many examples of companies that have failed to use data to drive decisions because they’ve had a hard time changing their existing habits. When it comes to data, I’ve found that there’s a big difference between what people say they are willing to do, and what they are actually ready to do. Being data-driven often requires doing things in a fundamentally different way, so the pain they are experiencing with the status quo needs to be big enough to get them to try something new. People often say that they want to change, but in actual practice, they tend to default to the way things have traditionally been done. We’ve found that, when it comes to behavioral change, it takes a lot to get people to break some of their traditional habits.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.
Hire a data team. Establish a dedicated data analytics team to serve as the decision-making nerve center for your organization. Without that, you’ll be flying blind.
Agree on key metrics. Ensure that the leaders in your organization have a handle on the most important subsets of data that are critical to the business’ success .
Foster partnerships between the data team and business stakeholders. Build alignment with marketing, product, engineering, etc. by embedding analysts within teams.This is the best way to scale a data-driven culture, to go from dozens to hundreds, or thousands of employees.
Create a data onboarding plan. Create a training enablement plan for the first 30 days of every new hire in the organization in order to familiarize and orient them to the analytical assets that they need to do their job. This may sound simple, but it requires discipline to do it properly.
Always be willing to sacrifice your ego. Have an open mind, listen to others and be willing to learn. Often the right answers come out of a respectful debate based on opposing viewpoints about the data.
The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures”. Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?
In order to change a culture, you have to have buy-in– not just from the top executives, but from everyone in the organization. Grassroots buy-in is critical to the success of creating a data-driven culture. How will you motivate people? You need to listen to people and think hard about what they are telling you. What will motivate them, both tactically and on a macro level? What will make the most impact, both in terms of their daily productivity and on a larger level regarding issues they care about? It’s super important to get all that input upfront, and to continue checking in as you go, in order to find out what’s working and what needs to be changed.
The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?
We’re operating at an interesting moment in time. Economically, we’ve been in a period of expansion for a very long time. Now, many experts say that we’re shifting into a period of contraction for the next couple years. If so, we’re entering a new business cycle that will force organizations to have more discipline around their operations. It’s hard to say what the future holds, but in a bear market, being data-driven will become more important than ever before.
Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you?
Workstream.io is about to launch its public beta program, which will scale the number of customers we serve in a very short time period. We want to make sure that we onboard those new customers successfully and help them to make better use of their data. In that process of that growth, we’ll experience a lot of the same challenges that many startups experience around hiring and getting the word out about our product. Throughout the process, we’ll need to rigorously monitor our own data and continue to be patient and humble about what’s working and what needs to be adjusted.
Every phase of the business’ growth will present its own set of challenges, but we’ll continue to sip our own champagne by adhering to a data-driven model and utilizing our own platform to improve our workflows.
How can our readers further follow your work?
You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as Workstream.io’s blog.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
