4 ms·

Joel, what are you using for your cohort analysis? An internally-built tool? A third-party service?

joelg87 14y ago
Hey Charlie! We've been back and forth on this in the lifetime of the startup, but we're now doing all metrics ourselves, so it is internally built. I built an early version of the cohort analysis (which didn't scale, but that didn't matter) just a few months in and it was massively valuable. It's not too hard to knock something together.
- adambenayoun 14y ago
  Thanks for the answer Joel! By the way - I'm curious why you guys had to built this internally - I always get the feeling people prefer using a 3rd party service like kissmetrics than building something.
- charliepark 14y ago
  Solid. Thanks!
- robertocr 14y ago
  Internal BI is the way to go. It gives better vision to those who make decisions. Congratulations! :)
nanch 14y ago
Would be an interesting third party tool. Does anyone do this already? Something as simple as receiving a list of usernames over time.
- lubos 14y ago
  MixPanel can do this and they have a free plan. I custom-built my own cohort reports but as number of users grow in my own app, I'm planning to replace it with MixPanel. You don't really want to put stress on your own database servers which are meant for production, not for analysis.
  - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
    You should not be doing analysis (OLAP) on your main transactional database (OLTP). Moving from transaction-processing system (TPS) to analysis is done through a process call ETL (Extract, Transform, Load.) You will want to transform your data into facts and dimensions -- this is going from a relational model to a multidemensional model (using a star schema.)
    - lubos 14y ago
      but that would be another system to maintain. I'm happy to outsource this to MixPanel or some other company. My needs are pretty generic. I appreciate your response though.
      - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
        Yes, I 100% believe in focusing on your core competencies. If the OLAP is self-hosted or external, the key takeaway is to not do analysis against production (once your data set is larger than RAM ;) before that, who cares?)
- ryanjm33 14y ago
  Cohort.ly does a great job. They are in private beta so you can request access. It has been really beneficial to us. http://cohort.ly/ http://cohort.ly/
  - mh- 14y ago
    I really dislike this trend of only having videos to share info about a product or service. Not even a blurb on there.
- mh- 14y ago
  have a look at https://github.com/Doist/bitmapist https://github.com/Doist/bitmapist - some more info here http://amix.dk/blog/post/19718 http://amix.dk/blog/post/19718

Hey Charlie! We've been back and forth on this in the lifetime of the startup, but we're now doing all metrics ourselves, so it is internally built. I built an early version of the cohort analysis (which didn't scale, but that didn't matter) just a few months in and it was massively valuable. It's not too hard to knock something together.

adambenayoun 14y ago
Thanks for the answer Joel! By the way - I'm curious why you guys had to built this internally - I always get the feeling people prefer using a 3rd party service like kissmetrics than building something.
charliepark 14y ago
Solid. Thanks!
robertocr 14y ago
Internal BI is the way to go. It gives better vision to those who make decisions. Congratulations! :)

nanch 14y ago

Would be an interesting third party tool. Does anyone do this already? Something as simple as receiving a list of usernames over time.

lubos 14y ago
MixPanel can do this and they have a free plan. I custom-built my own cohort reports but as number of users grow in my own app, I'm planning to replace it with MixPanel. You don't really want to put stress on your own database servers which are meant for production, not for analysis.
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago
  You should not be doing analysis (OLAP) on your main transactional database (OLTP). Moving from transaction-processing system (TPS) to analysis is done through a process call ETL (Extract, Transform, Load.) You will want to transform your data into facts and dimensions -- this is going from a relational model to a multidemensional model (using a star schema.)
  - lubos 14y ago
    but that would be another system to maintain. I'm happy to outsource this to MixPanel or some other company. My needs are pretty generic. I appreciate your response though.
    - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
      Yes, I 100% believe in focusing on your core competencies. If the OLAP is self-hosted or external, the key takeaway is to not do analysis against production (once your data set is larger than RAM ;) before that, who cares?)
ryanjm33 14y ago
Cohort.ly does a great job. They are in private beta so you can request access. It has been really beneficial to us. http://cohort.ly/ http://cohort.ly/
- mh- 14y ago
  I really dislike this trend of only having videos to share info about a product or service. Not even a blurb on there.
mh- 14y ago
have a look at https://github.com/Doist/bitmapist https://github.com/Doist/bitmapist - some more info here http://amix.dk/blog/post/19718 http://amix.dk/blog/post/19718