Alistair Croll > Quotes

“We sometimes remind early-stage founders that, in many ways, they aren’t building a product. They’re building a tool to learn what product to build.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Don’t just ask questions. Know how the answers to the questions will change your behavior. In other words, draw a line in the sand before you run the survey.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Don’t sell what you can make; make what you can sell.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Your job isn’t to build a product; it’s to de-risk a business model.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Customers are people. They lead lives. They have kids, they eat too much, they don’t sleep well, they phone in sick, they get bored, they watch too much reality TV. If you’re building for some kind of idealized, economically rational buyer, you’ll fail. But if you know your customers, warts and all, and you build things that naturally fit into their lives, they’ll love you.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Instincts are experiments. Data is proof.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“We’re huge believers in doing things quickly, but there’s a difference between focused speed in a smart direction and being ridiculously hasty.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“A good metric is a ratio or a rate. Accountants and financial analysts have several ratios they look at to understand, at a glance, the fundamental health of a company. You need some, too.
There are several reasons ratios tend to be the best metrics:
• Ratios are easier to act on. Think about driving a car. Distance traveled is informational. But speed—distance per hour—is something you can act on, because it tells you about your current state, and whether you need to go faster or slower to get to your destination on time.
• Ratios are inherently comparative. If you compare a daily metric to the same metric over a month, you’ll see whether you’re looking at a sudden spike or a long-term trend. In a car, speed is one metric, but speed right now over average speed this hour shows you a lot about whether you’re accelerating or slowing down.
• Ratios are also good for comparing factors that are somehow opposed, or for which there’s an inherent tension. In a car, this might be distance covered divided by traffic tickets. The faster you drive, the more distance you cover—but the more tickets you get. This ratio might suggest whether or not you should be breaking the speed limit.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“You need to know which aspects of your business are too risky and then work to improve the metric that represents that risk.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Consumers love novelty; businesses just call it risk.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Marc Andreesen puts it, “Markets that don’t exist don’t care how smart you are.”[”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“sometimes what you need is a new market, not a new product,”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Getting paid is, in some ways, the ultimate metric for identifying a sustainable business model. If you make more money from customers than it costs you to acquire them — and you do so consistently — you’re sustainable. You don’t need money from external investors, and you’re growing shareholder equity every day.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“created. These initial surveys were sent via email alone.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“If you identify a real need, you won’t be the only one satisfying it, and you’ll need all the talent you can muster in order to succeed.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Don't just think "mobile first". Think "search first", and invest in instrumenting search metrics on your website and within your product to see what users are looking for and what they are not able to find.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Your job isn’t to build a product; it’s to de-risk a business model. Sometimes the only way to do this is to build something, but always be on the lookout for measurable ways to quantify risk without a lot of effort.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Somos una especie débil y superficial. Los seres humanos tienden a decir lo que creen que el otro quiere escuchar.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Cómo utilizar los datos para crear más rápido una startup mejor

“Quantitative data abhors emotion; qualitative data marinates in it.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Advertising pays for the Internet.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Drucker wrote, “Without productivity objectives, a business does not have direction. Without productivity measurements, it does not have control.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“German game developer Wooga is a master of metrics.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“If two metrics change together, they’re correlated, but if one metric causes another metric to change, they’re causal. If you find a causal relationship between something you want (like revenue) and something you can control (like which ad you show), then you can change the future.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“With the rise of social networks and sites like Facebook and Pinterest, which can refer visitors, e-commerce companies are increasingly interested in a long funnel that begins with a tweet, a video, or a link, and ends with a purchase.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Define what success looks like beforehand, and know what you’re going to do if your hunch is right.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“three clear criteria for deciding what to spend your time on: something that you’re good at, that you want to do, and that you can make money doing.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“Everything is an experiment you can learn from.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“If you can’t find 15 people to talk to, well, imagine how hard it’s going to be to sell to them. So suck it up and get out of the office. Otherwise, you’re wasting time and money building something nobody wants.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“In a startup, the purpose of analytics is to find your way to the right product and market before the money runs out.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

“When you’re scaling, you know your product and your market. Your metrics are now focused on the health of your ecosystem, and your ability to enter new markets.”
― Alistair Croll, Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster