Less...and better

Took me long enough, right? Five years, thousands of hours as the assistant to the assistant little league baseball coach, eight hundred carpools, gallons of ink spilled about music that nobody cares about, dozens of tempting offers, one book about entrepreneurship (a first!), one documentary still in progress (another first!) and -- how could I forget -- one global pandemic later, I’m starting up again.

Well, kind of. This week, we announced the launch of facts & feelings, an intelligent business consultancy obsessed with less…and? better. And while I won’t be directing the show or starring in the show, I have been working hard for almost a year to get the best possible show on the road. Lucky for me, along the way I met the exact right stars. David McBride (CEO), Tim Wilson (Head of Solutions) and Valerie Kroll (Head of Delivery) are the co-founding team at f&f. Meanwhile, I’ll be serving as a very active, very eager board chair and advisor.

Just yesterday, David McBride introduced f&f by describing the problems we want to solve and our hypotheses for solving them. Tim Wilson diagnosed a collective analysis paralysis, spurred on by lots of data chasing and collecting but much less finding and doing. And Val Kroll teased the radical power of radical focus. But, because I’m so excited and because I just can’t help myself, I wanted to share similar thoughts in my own words.

The problem is massive and -- I suspect for many -- obvious: somewhere over the last ten years, in our earnest pursuit of being “data driven,” we all lost the thread. Once upon a time, it seemed so simple and earnest. We wanted to track goals and understand customer needs. But, along the way we spiraled into a fragmented, byzantine, over-engineered, non-stop pursuit of more software, more data, more architecture and more reports. Two decades after Google and Omniture showed us the possible, “more” has become synonymous with “better.” Buy the new piece of SaaS. Get the additional data source. Hire more people to support the former. Procure more budget to fund the latter. And with each new addition, we find ourselves further and further away from actual value. Budgets bloat. Activities spiral. Teams disconnect. We’ve lost our collective way and while I am certain that many of us know this, I fear that very few of us have thought about how to get it back.

Well, that’s what we want to do at facts & feelings. We want to help businesses with the elegantly simple — but brutally hard — work of transforming people with data & software into teams with focus & insight. To help organizations get value through research, analytics & experimentation -- not through more, but through less…and better. To cross the chasm from hyper-active to hyper-focused. The truth is that everyone has more software and data than they know what to do with. So, time out on more. And while we’re in time out it feels safe to propose something controversial, if not wholly illogical. Enough with the solutions! You already have enough solutions -- ideas, plans, projects, tools, hypotheses. Further, you likely have enough really smart people capable of imagining, designing and building sharp, creative solutions. And, if you don’t there are a hundred agencies and a thousand software companies ready to sell you solutions.?

Yes, solutions are everywhere. But the solutions aren’t the problem. The problems are the problem. And the goals. And the insights. Turns out that your solutions are only as successful as the goals you set, the problems you choose to address and the insights you learn from. And, based on what we’ve observed over the years, companies are so distracted with solutions that they’ve lost sight of how to effectively define goals & problems, what insights look like and what to do with them. At f&f, we believe that you already have all the solutions you need -- that they are likely already there, “in the room.” In fact, we are thrilled to let everyone else obsess over the solutions if we can help ensure that the solutions have clear and measurable relationships to goals and problems and if the insights generated from those solutions get our clients closer to value creation. We will endeavor to make our clients masters of their goals (great goals), tamers of their problems (most worth solving) and (super) spreaders of insight. When we do that -- trust us -- the solutions will fall in line. Moreover, the solutions will be more likely to succeed.?

But here’s the kicker -- once we’ve started that elegantly simple but brutally hard work, the byproduct is an always on, always measurable, always shareable view of how your goals, problems, solutions and insights relate to each other. No more silos. No more mystery. No more dashboards lost in email, UX research in one folder, analytics somewhere else, A/B test results dead on the vine. At f&f, doing the work means understanding why the work does or does not yield value. Not just the what or the how, but the why. There are dozens of great research and analytics agencies. There are thousands -- probably tens of thousands -- of talented researchers and analysts out there. Research and analytics are essential means for us. But our aim is to create organizational leverage and growth through unambiguous alignment, deeper focus and greater understanding.

As best I can recall, data was always supposed to inform and guide us -- not do all the work or guarantee success for us. At its best, data furnishes us with positive constraints -- targets to aim for, obstacles to overcome and learnings to follow (or avoid). At its frequent worst, however, data becomes a quagmire -- a source of debate and endless fishing and chasing. At f&f, we want to honor that original promise -- data as positive constraints. There will of course be times for more software, more data, more solutions, etcetera, etcetera. But right now is the time to (re)set the foundation for how your business “thinks about thinking” before well intended but wasteful human intelligence begets well intended but wasteful artificial intelligence.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have three basic criteria for joining a startup: First, I have to believe in the thesis. Second, I have to love the team. And third, I have to convince myself that I can add value. In this case, I am dead certain about one and two and hopeful about the third. Which is why I invite all of you to connect with facts & feelings. I’m confident that our thesis will land like a thunderbolt. And that the team will knock your socks off. So -- to all my friends and colleagues -- check us out. Especially if you deeply believe in the power of research, analytics and experimentation but feel like the promise always seems just out of reach. Especially if the answer you keep landing on is “more” -- more software, more data, more integrations, more specialists. We relate. And we can help. Together, we can do less…and better.