The 4 stages of working data-driven in a startup

In this episode of Datadrivet, Joni Lindgren and Jasmin Yaya talk with Carl Lager from ArK Kapital about how working data-driven changes as a startup grows. Carl has led growth at several tech companies, including Spotify, Soundtrack Your Brand and Hedvig, and he frames the journey as four stages.

The four stages:

1. Pre stage. The idea exists and launch is coming soon.
2. Launch stage. You launch and find your first customers or users.
3. Traction stage. The product has taken shape and starts getting traction in a market.
4. Growth stage. Exponential growth, and you broaden channels and verticals.

The point Carl keeps coming back to is that the early stages are not about dashboards. They are about getting close to people. At Hedvig’s pre stage, hosting pizza nights with early customers surfaced things a survey never would, including skepticism about downloading an app. That insight led them to build a web signup instead. At Soundtrack Your Brand, talking to users revealed they wanted Sonos integration, again something you would not catch through quantitative measurement alone.

Quantitative work earns its place later. At the traction stage you define the moments that matter, the set-up moment and the aha moment, and you start running cohort analysis. Carl notes that cohort analysis is extremely valuable and still underused by a lot of teams.

The takeaway is to match the method to the stage. Listen and learn in the early days, then layer in metrics and cohorts once the product has traction worth measuring.

Listen to the full episode of Datadrivet for Carl Lager’s full breakdown of each stage.