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> preferably with a dashboard Nope. Daily / weekly / monthly plain text email or emailed spreadsheet is way better. The problem with dashboards is that when t

> preferably with a dashboard Nope. Daily / weekly / monthly plain text email or emailed spreadsheet is way better. The problem with dashboards is that when the underlying numbers change, they can change the figures for the past and there won't be a record of it. If it's in an email someone can bring up this discrepancy. Also, lots of startups waste a lot of time building a dashboard not realizing that they're now building two apps. "We don't need login, we'll just IP whitelist it." Then a VC wants to see the numbers. Then he wants to forward it to his partners. Now if your dashboard goes down the CEO starts freaking out about how it makes the company look during their raise. The rest of the advice is spot on though. Especially keeping the number of KPIs down. This isn't to rule out pulling in other sets of numbers, but those should be done by a Data Analyst and they should be one-time analyses that can be re-run by the analyst later if needed.

moritzplassnig 8y ago
We pushed data automatically into a Google Sheet (e.g. importdata() from Looker). The sheet had a column per month and I simply exported that sheet at the end of a month and shared it with our investors (together with an email update). Super easy, the Google Sheet "dashboard" was available to everybody in the company and our investors received the same information.
iooi 8y ago
> Daily / weekly / monthly plain text email or emailed spreadsheet is way better. > Also, lots of startups waste a lot of time building a dashboard not realizing that they're now building two apps. Setting up a Grafana dashboard is a lot easier than setting up crons that send emails. Auth is built in, including OAuth. It's also trivial to have your data adjust to time bounds that you can change on the interface. > when the underlying numbers change, they can change the figures for the past and there won't be a record of it. Any important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, and you won't have to track down emails and compare across different tabs.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  > Setting up a Grafana dashboard is a lot easier than setting up crons that send emails. Auth is built in, including OAuth. Not really. It would take me about 5 minutes to setup an extra worker that sent emails for an existing app. Plus, it's a strategic decision to share numbers with a potential funder. That decision should be made each time, rather than allow ongoing analysis. > Any important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, and you won't have to track down emails and compare across different tabs. I agree that important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, what I'm saying is that sometimes changes in code can change numbers in the past. If each email has that month's spreadsheet, complete with numbers going into the past, and someone says "hey wait a minute, I thought churn in July 2017 was 4.5%, I remember because it was our worst month!" Then you can go back to see what the email said.

moritzplassnig 8y ago

We pushed data automatically into a Google Sheet (e.g. importdata() from Looker). The sheet had a column per month and I simply exported that sheet at the end of a month and shared it with our investors (together with an email update). Super easy, the Google Sheet "dashboard" was available to everybody in the company and our investors received the same information.

iooi 8y ago

> Daily / weekly / monthly plain text email or emailed spreadsheet is way better. > Also, lots of startups waste a lot of time building a dashboard not realizing that they're now building two apps. Setting up a Grafana dashboard is a lot easier than setting up crons that send emails. Auth is built in, including OAuth. It's also trivial to have your data adjust to time bounds that you can change on the interface. > when the underlying numbers change, they can change the figures for the past and there won't be a record of it. Any important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, and you won't have to track down emails and compare across different tabs.

3pt14159 8y ago
> Setting up a Grafana dashboard is a lot easier than setting up crons that send emails. Auth is built in, including OAuth. Not really. It would take me about 5 minutes to setup an extra worker that sent emails for an existing app. Plus, it's a strategic decision to share numbers with a potential funder. That decision should be made each time, rather than allow ongoing analysis. > Any important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, and you won't have to track down emails and compare across different tabs. I agree that important numbers should be graphed on a time series chart, what I'm saying is that sometimes changes in code can change numbers in the past. If each email has that month's spreadsheet, complete with numbers going into the past, and someone says "hey wait a minute, I thought churn in July 2017 was 4.5%, I remember because it was our worst month!" Then you can go back to see what the email said.