Using data to save your engineering-product relationship

Welcome to "Good Job, Software," a newsletter from me, Daniel Bean, Editor and Content Strategist at Mixpanel. What I'll be delivering here is a periodical rundown of the newest and best pieces from?The Signal, Mixpanel's blog about all things product management and analytics, as well as a curated collection of tech and software industry news and views (and, yes, memes) from around the ??.

Happy weekend! If you're subscribed and reading this newsletter, you probably know all the general benefits of using product analytics to grow and improve your software product. Conversion funnels, retentions, all that good stuff. But how about using product data to optimize operations at your resource-strapped startup?

I recently welcomed engineer and technical leader Tim Flack to write a blog at The Signal that explains how he's done just that at five different startups.

Read on for that piece alongside other new stuff from The Signal and more.

What I'm reading ??
        

• It's the golden age of databases. It can't last. (Protocol)
• Why Python is not the programming language of the future (TheNextWeb)
• The modern data stack for growth (Data-led Academy)
• Windows 10 and 11 move to the cloud with Microsoft's Windows 365 Cloud PC (CNET)
• What's the difference between Reverse ETL tools and Segment? (Hightouch)
• Getting buy-in as a PM (Lenny's Newsletter)

From The Signal ??        

I’ve helped build 5 startups. Here’s how I use product analytics to cut costs—and headaches.

For startups, product analytics isn’t just a “nice to have” tool in your stack of tech solutions that are supposed to help you grow. In veteran startup builder Tim Flack's experience, product analytics, if done right, should help sharpen the full product development and engineering approach at resource-strapped companies (and earn you more runway to succeed). In this blog, Tim explains the kind of operational startup problems he's solved using data and product analytics, and he lays out some best practices to help you do the same.

Cookies, consent, and the GDPR: The role of privacy in a product analytics strategy

Collection and use of personal data is core to product analytics, but how do you prepare for a procurement process which will likely include working with compliance, security, and legal teams when selecting new tools? This guide aims to help product leaders with all of that, based on our experience at Mixpanel of working with hundreds of customers around the world.

The difference between BI and product analytics—and why you need both

Thinking you need to choose between a Business Intelligence (BI) tool and a product analytics tool? Think again. In this blog, Mixpanel Principal Product Manager Adam Kinney explains that these tools, used properly, can be great compliments of each other in a sound data stack approach. Check it out to learn about going deep with product analytics and going wide with BI.

Your ?? of the week        

Thanks for reading, and see you next edition!