StartUp Founders: Black Box Decision Making


Hey Reader,

Vanity is website traffic without conversions. Sanity is understanding why. It’s the difference between knowing what your product does and why it does it. Welcome to observability - where data meets reality. (𝕏)

Data, combined with inference and judgment, helps you find the root cause of everything. You see, you understand, and you act.

TL;DR: Observability isn't just about collecting data; it's about using it to see your product through your users eyes to build a product they can't live without. Observability Workbook.

PostHog: How StartUp Founders See Data

The single platform to analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features.

Free, for so long, for so much data, you'll probably never pay. Try PostHog now.

Want to get in front of 140,000+ founders? Go here.

LAST WEEKS FRAMEWORK:

3.1 AI First Era: Foundational Building

LETS GET INTO IT:

Your gut feeling as a founder is insane. The founders who lean in to data have a transformative experience, especially those who see hidden signals. Raw data is just noise without the right tools to interpret it, you are one of those tools.

Observability isn't just about your app's performance; it's about understanding the entire customer journey, from their first click to a successful checkout, and how you support (or hinder) that experience.

  • Why are users abandoning their shopping carts? Unexpected costs, complicated checkout process, or something else?
  • Why are users not engaging with a particular feature? They don't understand its value, it's difficult to use, or it doesn't meet their needs?
  • Why are some users churning at a higher rate than others? Is it pricing, lack of features, or poor support?

It's more than clicks, events, or time spent (the what). Its digging deeper to uncover the why, intelligence that informs product, marketing, and the business. Finding the root cause of something, good or bad, and doing something about it.

The Observability Deck: Your Data-Drive Journey To Find Out Why

If you're still here, you're probably not sold on why you should care?

Observability is the difference between building a product that works vs fighting to create one that's truly exceptional. It's about answering questions that SHOULD keep you up at night:

  • Why are users abandoning their shopping carts?
  • Why aren't they engaging with that new feature?
  • Why are some users sticking around while others are leaving?

The Observability Stack lets you connect the dots, uncover the root causes, and make decisions that actually move the needle.

It's all hyper related, you cannot look at your data in a silo.

EX: You see a high volume of cart abandons, yet the experience is perfect, the app is working, you assume price - nope, the latency on your metal is driving people to give up.... only data would connect those dots.

The User: Track their every move, from demographics to in-app behavior. Understand their journey, pain points, and motivations.

The App: Monitor performance, errors, and feature usage. Ensure a smooth, seamless experience for every user interaction.

The Metal: Keep your servers and systems running smoothly. Optimize for speed, reliability, and scalability to handle any traffic surge.

Stop flying blind. It's not about becoming a data nerd; it's about becoming a smarter founder.

If you need help connecting the dots, feel free to grab time with me.

Now go meet reality.

-- James

Not A Subscriber?

Join 140k+ StartUp Founders reading my weekly newsletter offering tactical insights to start, scale, and fund their startup. Real advice from a 3x exited founder.


‪8424 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite A523, Los Angeles, CA 90069
Unsubscribe · Preferences

StartUp To ScaleUp

Where 140k+ founders read my weekly newsletter offering tactical insights to start, scale, and fund their startup. Real advice from a 3x exited founder.

Read more from StartUp To ScaleUp
Build The Toy

Hey Reader, Focus. Relentlessly. With precision. Insane Discipline. Unreasonable levels of work. Just you. Heads down. Do the work. Ship the roadmap. Hit the milestones. But also? Build the toy.... Starting A Startup: Build Something People Want Every founder starts at zero. No one starts with a product, customers, revenue, or a real clue how it will all play out. Everyone has a dream, a vision, and some level of arrogance that they can actually make this thing happen. Failure is the result...

Homicide Detective

Hey Reader, The wannabe founders can talk about their idea, the market, the problem statement, all 11 slides on the YC deck template and sound fab. Good founders can go deeper. The players, the mechanics, the moving parts. The network, the sales plays, the - wow this founder really knows their shit kinda founder. Great founders? They know it all. They've lived in the problem so long (enough), gone so deep (enough), it's part of their DNA. They know shit that we don't even think to ask....

Early Days

Hey Reader, The early days f’n suck. The super-early stage actually lasts way past when you thought you’d be through it. It’s deeply embarrassing. And any sane outsider would believe you shouldn’t even be in business. Your product is held together with duct tape and prayer. Your team is three people working for equity in a company worth 0. Your runway is some black magic of squeezing 6 months out of 2 months of cash. Your biggest customer is your friend, and she doesn't actually use it. The...