Meet the analytics stack

What if you start a new product where the category is pretty crowded already?

And most of the people that you talk to tell you: maybe not a good idea.

But Oliver and Hamzah decided to do it. A new BI tool based on modern data principles and tools.

Show Notes

Would you start a new product when the category is pretty crowded already What if you start a new product where the category is pretty crowded already?

And most of the people that you talk to tell you: maybe not a good idea.

But Oliver and Hamzah decided to do it. A new BI tool based on modern data principles and tools.

It’s built on top of the metadata that you already have when you use dbt. In the same place where you describe your model with descriptions and columns, you can use Lightdash to define your metrics and dimensions and how these different kinds of data tables relate to each other.

This is the metric or semantic layer everyone is talking about. An abstraction layer between your tables in your data warehouse and the place the business users are working with it.

So marketing, product, or sales. They basically get a prepared version of the data just for them. With metrics and dimensions for them to work with. And so they don't have to think about how do I get the revenue and where do I get the country information so I can drill it down by country.

What is Meet the analytics stack?

We are talking to founders and thought leaders in the analytics space in this podcast. We learn about the motivations behind the products they offer. We discuss new topics that shape the analytics space.

These are exciting times where the data space is exploding, and so are ways to collect and analyze data.

Some years ago, it was pretty easy for most companies to decide on an analytics tool.
Either you go for an all-purpose solution like Google Analytics.
Or you need something special for your mobile app or product team, so Amplitude.
Or you just want the raw data without much effort: Segment.

Today it has become a science of its own to find the proper tracking & analytics setup. What made it so complicated?

- GDPR & Browser protection added more measures what you can track and where to store the data
- Google will sunset the old Google Analytics version, so you can only use GA4 in the future
- Plenty of more competition in each analytics category (which is a good thing)
- New categories like privacy-aware and simple analytics solutions

Deciding for a tracking and analytics stack should take a bit. It’s an essential part of your setup, so it should meet your current requirements to some degree (no one can look into the future).