Scaling data-infra from seed to IPO

"The world is one big data problem" - Andrew McAfee

We recently hosted a fantastic session on scaling data infra from seed to IPO with Rahul Chari (Founder, CTO, PhonePe), Bhaskar Ghosh (Partner, 8VC) and Manish Jethani (Founder, CEO, Hevo Data). SHighlights in the thread below:

1/ Proactive, not reactive. If data is your IP, collect data sets irrespective of whether you have identified the need. Build specific use cases later

2/ Don’t start on the wrong step. Try to have a blueprint on what your system looks like 2 years out. You do it for a product, you do it data infra also

3/ Enforce discipline early. A big no-no to finding an easier way out or you will never fix the system. Case in point - never query the prod db, it always has to be the warehouse

4/ Dog food your tech team. For SaaS companies, be a client of your stack. Or else empathy between data and business teams break down

5/ Talent shortage is real. Massive opportunity in making tech accessible. Although software is eating the world, 97% companies are not software companies. Can’t get the best engineers to work for them