From running a data company and investing in dozens of data companies, here are some learnings about data businesses that I wish I knew 6 years ago: … - Auren Hoffman

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From running a data company and investing in dozens of data companies, here are some learnings about data businesses that I wish I knew 6 years ago:

Data businesses are MUCH harder than I thought
* There are often only a small number of buyers
* Data businesses can be SUPER competitive
* Can take a lot of dev infrastructure which can be costly — it is a fixed cost but costly nevertheless
* If you are a horizontal data business (selling to many industries), you never are great for any one industry
* Just because you get to $10M ARR, doesn’t meant mean you have REAL product-market-fit

Being too religious is only good when you are right
If you are right, you get to go to heaven. But if you are wrong, you need to jettison your old beliefs.