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0:00
Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Akil, and if you're interested in data analytics, startups and big data, today's episode is for you. Joining me today is Alex Freberg, also known as Alex the analyst on YouTube. He quit his full time job to go consultancy and content creation full time. And he gives us a little sneak peek into the startup that he's building. Fun little titbit. He actually had his own granola company in college. That's really cool.
0:23
I'll put all his links to socials in the description below. Check him out. And with that being said, enjoy the episode
0:30
beyond coding. You know, I always have consider myself like a dad first, like, or a husband first because as important as my work is, like, as serious as I take it, I try to put them first. And so most of the time, like I cater my work schedule around like my family stuff. Yeah. So, you know, I think that it's a healthy balance and I do work a lot, but because I work at home, like I work remote, I can work whenever I want to, wherever I want to. I'm able to really do I do it my way.
1:06
Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. I first and foremost really like that about you, but I'm assuming that decision kind of weighed heavily on you as well when you decided to kind of go off on your own and go contract creation full time. And what you're doing now, was that kind of a
1:23
I was I mean, it was definitely on your mind, but did you consider the risk involved with that as well?
1:30
Yeah, And it's something that even about a year over a year ago, because I've only been doing I quit my job in end of December. Now it's March, right? So like it's only been three months or like three and a half months. But I had been thinking about it for the past year. Like as things started to grow, I had this kind of side business in the background of like consulting and working with tech companies and startups and is going really well. And I was like, you know,
1:55
this might be something I want to do later on full time. Yeah. And so as it started to get more serious, like I was getting bigger contracts and I was getting more work, I was like, you know, if I, if I did this, it could work out really well. But then I lose a lot of things, the stability of a full time job
2:12
and just like the security of, you know, for all those benefits that you get with working at a full company or full time job. And so that was the biggest thing for me is like I just wanted to make really certain that I had everything set up. So now that I'm here, I'm 100%, like, happy with where I'm at and really, really happy that I did it because it's gone exceptionally well and just things have continued to grow even now. And so I think I positive I made the right decision.
2:41
But yes, it was very nerve wracking, like I was very nervous about it.
2:45
I over tend to overthink things a little bit sometimes, and so I wanted to let my wife calls it analysis paralysis. Like I overanalyze, I run all the numbers I had multiples, you know, documents like set up for all the different things like cost. It was just everything. Like everything I was could imagine. I was like, focused on it. And so but now I'm here and I'm over it. And, you know, I'm really happy that I did it. Yeah. For people that are considering going on off to their own venture,
3:13
I guess, or starting something of their own, Do you think your concerns were like too, Were they too much, too many concerns looking back now? Like were they valid or did you make them kind of hyperbolic? I guess?
3:26
Well, that's a good question. I think I think that I may have over worried a little bit. I think the biggest thing for me was that, you know, things change in this kind of world of of like creating content and contracting even can go an ebb and flow. And I was just worried. I was like, what if, like the work dries up? Yeah, I had no money. But, you know, by that point I had a pretty steady flow, pretty steady customer base.
3:54
So I think, you know, if, if that person who's like thinking about doing that already has like a pretty good customer base or like client base and is, and is consistently doing it on the side, if you switch over full time and can dedicate all of your time to those clients, you know, they would be even more happy with that. And so yeah, for me I think I overthought it quite a bit. They just that I think that your wife set like you overanalyze or even to the point where it was analysis paralysis
4:20
also because on YouTube you're known as Alex the analyst. Can you walk me through kind of how that how that name came to be in the first place?
4:30
Sure. You know, when I was I actually had a YouTube channel before my current YouTube channel. It was the burger sauce. I was like, my last name was probably before sauce, but it was it was around watches. Like I started I started a channel based around reviewing watches because I loved watches nice. And that was like my first venture into YouTube and like, it was super small. I never got more than like 100 subscribers, but I loved I like I was like, I really like this.
5:02
But I didn't make a lot of money at the time. I was like, I can't afford to keep buying new watches. I can't afford to keep like, doing this. Yeah. And then I was like, you know, what else could I make? And when I really got to like thinking about it because I was like, I really enjoy making the content, I was like, What could I do that could actually make an impact I could actually do? I was like, Okay, I really like coding. I really like data analytics.
5:22
And so I didn't actually create Alex the analysts first, like I had actually saved or created an account. It was like that. It was only Python. So I was going to focus only on Python stuff. Yeah. Creating projects and applications. And because I love Python
5:39
and I called it like I think it was the python master or something, something like that. And then I was like, you know, that's really neat. Check out. It's really I think it's too focused because I was like, if I broadened it to what I do for a living, which is data analytics, I could do data analytics and I could also do Python stuff. So I could do both. And so I was like, okay, let me brought it up. And then I did. What I always do is I made a spreadsheet of all these different names
6:04
and I was just like, Let's just keep it simple. Like, What am I doing? It's like, And then I came up with Alex, the analyst, and it really stuck
6:12
and I think I think it was a good name. I don't know. There could be a better one out there. I don't know. It's it's so catchy and I love that you said I did what I always did. I made a spreadsheet. Yeah, that's really cool. I love the name. That's basically it. How did you. Well, I was going to tell a different story, actually, when I when I got my first job when I was 16, I got my first paycheck and the first thing I got was a watch because I was like, I am a I'm a proper adult now.
6:40
A proper adult needs a watch. They go with that. Yeah yeah yeah. But you mentioned you have a background in data analytics, and when I came out of university, that was kind of one of my options when I was looking at jobs that were out there in the market. But for me, the there's not really a fine line that says, okay, this is the difference between, for example, what you would do as a data analyst or a business analyst or even you have analytics analyst.
7:04
Like what would you say the biggest difference in those roles or even a few of those are when you're looking at the job market? Yeah, that's the question that I get asked all the time because everybody's experience is different. Even my experience is different. I think give kind of like not doing a little bit. I'll give you kind of a general overview, but even my experience from company, the company that I've worked with several and I've now I've consulted
7:27
with a lot of companies and what their definition is of data analytics or business analytics are all these other things. It's very it's just depends on the company, right? In general,
7:39
typically I say data analytics is, you know, where you're working it more heavily on the coding, you're working more heavily on the visualizations
7:50
and you're analyzing data, right? That's what I did, Angel says. But then business analyst is working more heavily with the clients. Okay, So, you know, typically when I say should people actually become a business analyst or details, I say, well, do you have more experience as a data analyst and do you enjoy more of the coding aspect or do you have less experience, maybe just a little bit of SQL knowledge and Excel knowledge, But you know,
8:11
you really like working with clients and helping them figure out the problems. That's usually where I start. Like I'm like, okay, go down the data analyst route or the business analyst route. But you know, again, that even at my company where I used to work, which was a Fortune 500 company, you know, their definition was a little bit different. The business analysts were kind of internal working with stakeholders. They were expected to code just as much. Yeah.
8:35
And so, you know, it's just, again, I think every company is different. That's that's the tough part about tech in general is that a data scientist in Silicon Valley could be a glorified data analyst, whereas a business analyst here could be a data analyst at another company. It's very like company centric or just based off how they define their roles. Yeah, you know, that's a great perspective, context dependent and also a company probably in size
9:02
because if you're looking at a small scale startup, a startup, I guess the role that you're going to do is going to be so multifaceted it because they don't have they can't leverage the amount of money they have in different roles and specialties in there. So your role is going to be more multifaceted, more of a generous generalist role, and then kind of an umbrella term could be either data analyst or business analyst. And in a bigger company, for sure, they can have those specialties
9:30
and then you can have different skills in there as well, from junior media to senior and what have you I guess. Interest. Yeah, that's actually been exactly my experience because
9:40
when I started out my first job, I was a data analyst, but I was at a really small company like less than 50 people. Yeah, and it was kind of like this startup mentality and I did everything like I was the business side, I was the internal side. I did a lot of coding, I did a lot of visualization. I did everything. Yeah. Then when I got to the company that I just quit from, which was a very large company, every role had Exactly. Here's what you do.
10:06
Like I was on the data collection team and then there's like other teams. So then there's like, you know, the data science team, the data visualization team. And so I had like my lab of heavily coding, heavily working at databases, ETL kind of stuff. Yeah. And I didn't work at all with the visualizations, or at least I never built them. I just kind of like made my recommendations. Yeah interesting. Would you advise going of a similar pathway, like starting out
10:31
in a more multifaceted way and then finding your specialty, or more so starting with that specialty in mind and building up fundamentals before you go multifaceted, I guess. Yeah. I think like in like a perfect world, if you could choose, I think, and oftentimes you don't get the choice right, Like you just you get what you get sometimes and you go with what you get. Yeah, if I could choose, like if I had the choice, I would go more generalist.
10:58
I think it are more like small company type mentality where you can do everything. Yeah, because I learned that I really like the coding side of things. I really liked
11:10
working in school. I really like working with Python. I like visualizations, but not as much as I do like the ETL automation side of things. So I got to experience the whole range of things that I could do. And then I was like, I really like this. And then in my next job I got to only do that which I loved. So if possible, I think generalists is better. Although some people don't have the option right, they just get offered a job and sometimes they just, you know, have to take that experience.
11:37
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because that has a lot of similarity with my own journey as well in how I got to this role in the first place. I started in a role very consciously being like, okay, this is a role where I get to touch on a lot of aspects because I have no clue what I want to do, no clue what I want to specialize in. But this is a huge playing field for me and if I want to play left, if I want to play, I can do it basically. And that's where I started off.
12:01
And through that, through a lot of learning what I like and even more so, learning what I don't like to do. I found what I love to do, and that's what I'm doing right now in kind of a software engineering position. So I think I would align on that. But it's it's really hard to put that in practice and to aim for that. I guess you have to be kind of lucky to some degree as well, or create your own luck to some degree as well. Yeah exactly. And again, I was really lucky.
12:24
I just that path happened for me, but it was kind of by accident. Like I, I never did that. Definitely did not choose it. Like it just was. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, you touched on this in the call we did before this recording that you have a big passion for education, right? And with everyone that has that passion, I always think it's interesting to know where that comes from. Where where would you say that comes from? Yeah, I have a lot of teachers in my family.
12:52
My dad right now is a headmaster of a school, so like, he's my teacher for 30 years and then he was my teacher when I was in high school. So like, you know, my family is, is a bunch of teachers. And so I've always liked teaching. I even, you know, when I was growing up, I was a tutor for a lot of different things, like I was a tutor for the Tofel, which is like the entrance exam for, you know, students outside of the United States, at least the one people I were teaching from China.
13:21
So it's teaching people how to do that, that I was, I always tutored in like algebra and stuff like that in college. And so I always really enjoyed tutoring. I also did guitar lessons for a while. So like, I would teach people guitar. And so I've always enjoyed like working with people, mentoring them, that kind of thing. And
13:40
even in my job, like before I started YouTube, I would mentor people and, you know, take in like a junior data analyst and kind of teach them everything. I just always really, really enjoyed that. So, you know, I think it runs in my family and I kind of grew up with that. But then I also like throughout my life and career in education, I've been doing it as well. Yeah interesting. And in in finding YouTube, you have kind of this one too many in the way that you educate people.
14:05
Have you since like do you still do those one on one sessions in mentoring or coaching?
14:11
I did it up until one month ago, like I just stopped a month ago. So I've been doing mentoring for over two years in data analytics, like through my YouTube channel, people will come to me and do that and I'm like, Yeah, I do. I have a program. Yeah.
14:24
And I had like a waitlist of like eventually, like it was over 500 people and I eventually had to stop the waitlist. I was like, I will never get to those people. They will never get to the end of that list.
14:37
And so then as I started my full time business, I really just wanted to focus on my business, growing my business, making sure I was successful. Like taking care of my family is priority number one. So, you know, having a revenue stream where I could pay my bills and do that stuff, you know, took more precedence. But I've always enjoyed it. I only plan on stopping for a short while, like I'm hoping next year at the beginning of like 2024, I can start it up again
15:04
once I have everything established and like, you know, things are going well. Yeah yeah. When you find yourself in a position where you have so many things that you love doing, you have to pick and choose like which ones you actually can do. I think that's a good position to be in, but for me I always struggle with deciding then like, do you find yourself in that way as well where there's like so many things that you enjoy doing? It's kind of a struggle to say no to some things in that way.
15:30
Yeah, and I think I hit a big like a peak. I don't know. I don't call it like anxiety, but a peak. Like I had so many things at one time. Yeah. That I had to like really step back and like reevaluate my priorities and then hit about, like, probably a year ago, you know, I had my job, I was doing full time, I had my YouTube stuff, I was doing consulting on the side, I was doing mentorship. I'm building like lessons and all these things.
15:57
And then I have my family and so, like, I have a ton on my plate and I had to really step back and be like, Okay, what can I let go? What do I need to start saying no to more? And I had to do that. And so now over the past year, I've gotten really good at it. I'm like, okay, I know what I can do. I know what I can't do. I know it fits well in my schedule. And so I think I kind of have it all down to somewhat of a science now. But I think that, you know, as new opportunities arise,
16:23
I kind of do a reevaluate like priority levels and what I want to focus my time and energy on. Yeah interesting. When we when we zoom in to that, like what made you realize that the things you were doing, like it wasn't wasn't a sustainable thing to keep doing all of those things or to keep all of that on your plate. Like, was it an event that happened? Was it like a family that that had a conversation with you? What triggered that?
16:46
No, it definitely wasn't like anything bad. It was like because again, I've always prioritized my family first. Like I've never I've never, like,
16:56
focused on work too much. I've never focused on, like, YouTube too much. I think I've I've had a really good like, I've always prioritized that, but it got to a point where I had it again. It's like a good thing. Like I had so many companies reaching out to like consult with them and to do webinars and all these different things where I was like, I want to do all of them, but I like if I'm looking at my calendar, I'm looking at it honestly.
17:22
I can't fit everything in and spend time with my family like I would need to like get rid of my family to like, do all this other stuff.
17:29
And I would just I'm just not going to do that. Right. And so, you know, that that really was it. It was just kind of a slow boil until it got bigger and bigger. And then I was like, I need to take things down a notch. Just so that I can. Okay, Rosie, just so that I that's my dog. She's in here because she was she had spayed the other day, so she needed need some attention. But yeah, I mean that's, that's really all it was. It was just so much stuff kind of slowly
17:58
boiling up that I just kind of had to take a step back and prioritize. Yeah, I think ambitious people and people that love doing a lot of things, I think at some point they'll have that and I've had it through people talking to me and saying like, Hey, we haven't hung out in a while. Like, What's up where? I was like, Yeah, I've been working in the evenings and stuff like that or even where I just, I, I wrote down at the beginning of the year,
18:20
this was last year what I wanted to do for that year. And then I was doing all those things and something new would pop up and I really had to evaluate if I would let go of the things I was doing or actually say no to that. And it's it's hard to decide where someone comes to you with something enthusiastically and you really want to do that, except you just really don't have the space for it. Like it's it's a sad thing. It's a good thing. But then saying, no, it's something you have to do.
18:45
Otherwise you're going to you're going to burn out. I feel like. Yeah, exactly. Now, can you walk me through the company that you're building, not just on the content creation side, but more so the company that you're starting up together with the I don't know, the party you're working with. I don't know if you want to name the name, but that thing. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I have two. I have one like Umbrella Company is what I call that. So like, it's the company that it's called Alex Analytics.
19:12
Yeah. And under that umbrella I have two separate entities below it.
19:19
So Rosie wants to join the call. So the first company is Alex Analytics, where I mostly focus on consulting. That's where I do a lot of working with companies and you know, if they want my services for a lot, like I just do a ton of different things. So sometimes I'm going in and actually implementing a new like business strategy and helping them with their analytics team. Sometimes I'm, you know, they want to help me market their product or, you know, review their product.
19:49
So it varies very widely, but that's that's right. Now that's kind of my main business. Yeah. Now right on the on the other entity and under that as well as like my YouTube stuff, the other entity right now is something that I'm building and I've been building it for the past year. It's really close to being done. I have all the content completed. We're finalizing the website probably in the next like two months, but that's mostly focused on like
20:16
helping people become data analysts, but more, I don't know, as a professional because like my YouTube stuff is, is professional, but like, you know, is it with the building courses and
20:30
I don't know how much I want to talk about it because like, I haven't made any announcements yet, but it's going to be a fantastic platform to help people become the analysts. And I think it's going to be a major kind of competitor to a lot of companies out there. And I'm hoping that because of how good my audience is, that, you know, I can I can really like have a good hold on the market. And people will trust that, you know, I have their best interests at heart. Yeah.
21:00
So I we haven't discussed how much you want to talk about it, so just cut me off when you feel like, okay, I don't want to discuss this part, but you mentioned you're not building it yourself, which to me is a very interesting dynamic, right? Because you have programing knowledge. You know what being in the field is like. I mean, you're still consulting in a way now, yet you now are on the customer side. So someone else is building this thing. And for me, looking at or if I were to put myself
21:26
in that position, if things are not going as how I would build it or how I would envision it, I can see a lot of friction in there. Like, how's that process been so far?
21:36
And yeah, that's that's been an extremely eye opening part because normally I'm the I'm the person who builds things. I'm the person who helps people. Yeah, but it's been really eye opening because, you know, I get to take a step back and let them do what they're great at. So I work with a web or web development team and they're phenomenal. And what they've been doing is helping me like build out this website. Now, typically if you're a startup, which this is kind of like in my mind,
22:07
this is like I'm creating a startup. Yeah, When you're creating a startup, you want
22:15
you want to be in control of everything. You want to build it exactly how you want, but it's not my specialty. Like I'm not a web developer. Yeah, So these web developers are like building something that's really complex, and a lot of these startups, you know, they'll they'll build it based off of an already existing platform. Like they'll integrate a lot of different platforms into one website to build something which makes it really easy, really cost effective.
22:38
But what I'm building is it's a little bit more complex than what you typically can like get out the box of anything. And so it's very technical, like super technical. And so, you know, when I'm working with them, they've told me they're like, and I don't not try like Pat myself back or anything, but they're like, You're one of the best. You're one of the best clients to work with because you know, all the backgrounds stuff. So when we get on a call and I'm like, okay, you know, they're like,
23:07
This isn't working. I'm like, okay, let's actually look at it and I'll see if I can help figure it out. Because, you know, I understand the data. A lot of this has to do with databases on the backend and integrating that into the front end and how that all interacts. And so, you know, we'll dig into it. I can actually offer like advice and my thoughts and,
23:25
you know, they really like that. I think the other good thing is that I've worked so much with this stuff that I know that things don't go perfectly so like, I think I'm a pretty ideal client because when things don't go well, they get it's something gets pushed back two weeks. I'm like, I don't worry about it. I'm like, I get it. I know how that works. I know how it goes. And they're always like, Thank you so much for being understanding. And I'm like, Yeah, that is what it is.
23:48
But it's been it's been fantastic because they are definitely the experts and they've given me a lot of ideas that I didn't even have when I first conceptualized the website or like this, this like, you know, startup. And so, you know, it's definitely been a really good relationship and they've been really fantastic to work with. Yeah, I can imagine. So. I mean, from a customer intimacy point of view, that's what you want, right? From a client perspective and from a perspective
24:14
that's delivering in that way that kind of equal level of relationship and conversation, then that is a win win on both fronts, right? Because this is a this is a a man sometimes my my English escapes me, but it's a collaborative thing, right? You're doing this together and it doesn't really make sense if one of the sides wins and the other one loses because then both sides lose. So the best sense or the best case in this way would be a win win.
24:40
So I love that you're doing this collaboratively and together. Like, does it feel like you're part of that team then as well, or do you still feel like kind of the customer? See, I guess.
24:49
Yeah, I definitely feel more of like I'm on the team,
24:54
you know, I'm I'm working with a lot of web developers, software engineers. And again, it's I like I'm a I love to build things like I've always loved to build different websites and applications and different stuff, at least since I got into like tech. Yeah, I just love building projects. And so this to me is just like one big, big, big project. And so it encapsulates a ton of different, really technical, difficult projects and technologies and you're putting into one.
25:26
So like I'm learning a ton, I think I'm learning a lot more than they are because they some of these things, they aren't like they haven't built out before. And so as they're learning, you know, I'm learning with them. And so I feel like I'm paying for for like an education in software and web development. And so like my knowledge of, like different tech stacks has grown exponentially. Especially I'm like the software engineer database side
25:53
and just like integrating applications into a website. I mean, I a year ago I didn't know as much like a fifth as much as I know now. And so it's been really, really fun just to learn everything because like, I just love, I love building. It's super, super fun. Yeah, that's really cool. I can see a lot in how you would enjoy that process, basically. And then what I was wondering is you're building towards a point where you're going to go live, right?
26:20
Like with every MVP you're building or with every startup, at some point you're going to put something live and it doesn't have to be digital. It can be physical, but as soon as your live and the product is out there, that's when gear's going to shift and you have to go into this progressive mode of incrementally adding more value and improving in that way. Like have you already are you consciously thinking about what that way of working then is going to be with you?
26:43
Like are you going to focus on something else in the way that you're doing it?
26:48
My hope is that this becomes my main source of income.
26:54
My hope is that this becomes like something that that I can focus all my efforts on eventually. But when I first launch, I have I have my, like you said, my MVP. I have it already, complete it like it's at least the contents. The content is already there. I already have my next a year and a half worth of content lined up. I just have to build it. So like I already know exactly what I'm doing each month. Once I launch. But in terms of like,
27:27
I guess in terms of, you know, incrementally changing it, I think it'll kind of ebb and flow because I will be
27:38
I will be the only person creating content for this website. I don't have. I'm not, I guess yet again, I'm not trying to like not it's I'm not trying to give away too much about like everything that's in it.
27:50
But I don't I'm not hiring anybody to create any of the content I'm not hiring anybody on as ghostwriters or anything like I'm doing everything 100% all my own because I just really, really, really value my audience. And I know my audience doesn't want content from someone else. They like how I do things, what the things that I do. And so I feel like it'd be a disservice. But because of that, it's it's a ton of work on my plate. Like, but I'm willing to put in the extra effort
28:19
because I know my audience will appreciate it
28:23
and value it more than if I just hired on a bunch of people and just put it slapped it together. It was like, Here you go.
28:30
So yeah, it's going to be a lot. And another part of it is like this. I hope it's going to get a ton of traction right away. So like, you know, we're having two or I'm already talking with the Web dev team about like putting in safeguards for, you know, the website crashing and things like that, because I know that it's very much a possibility. And so there's like a lot of extra things that you may not have to do with like
28:55
at your typical start up, because I just, I already have a very large built in audience that I know will or will want to go to it because I know my audience very well. Yeah interesting. I mean, you don't want to lose that sense of authenticity, right? I think. Right. Previously in ten years before even 20 years, you would buy into a company and you would love the product, but you buy it because of that product. And I feel like there's a shift and people are no longer buying into a product,
29:20
but they care about the the people behind it. They care about what it stands for, what it does, the sense of authenticity and the relationship with someone way more than just the thing they're buying, like they're buying into an ecosystem of like personal sense in there as well. And especially with YouTube, there's now a sense of community as well and a sense of collaboration and discussions, which is way more open than your typical product would be in the first place.
29:46
So I like that you emphasize that that is going to be a focus in there and it's not going to be someone else. It's going to be, you doing that thing that needs to be done. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And that is I would say that's like one of my top priorities or top concerns when I do anything. So like, you know, on a day to day basis, probably per month, I'm reached out to by like 20 different companies,
30:09
Usually like every other day I'm getting something, Hey, could you sponsor this product? We want you to make a LinkedIn post. We want you to make a video. I say no to 99% of those because I'm like, Yeah, you could pay me a lot of money, but I know my audience so incredibly well. Like, I know what they want, I know what they like are like the majority of them, like on a larger scale as a whole. I know exactly what they want, what they're looking for,
30:34
what they're trying to do, because I was in their shoes. And so for me to like, then go and like, promote this bootcamp for $10,000 and they're like, we'll give you 20%. I'm making $2,000 per sale. I can make 100,000 $200,000 on that. If I started promoting it, I know I could like make a ton of money, but I would lose a lot of the confidence of my audience and that is like my top priority. And so when I'm building these things, when I'm making these content,
31:00
taking these contracts, a lot of it, I have to put it through the filter of how would my audience perceive that if I were to do that? And I'll give you an example. I, I just I took a contract. I built an entire python course for a company. I'm not going to say what company, but part of the agreement was that I was going to then promote it on LinkedIn, which I was happy to do because I built it. I'm really proud of it. It was an amazing course,
31:26
and when we first talked to this company, they were going to they were like, yes, we're you know, we're focused on helping people who are like disadvantaged and all these things, which I'm like totally for. I'm like, yes, that's I totally believe in what you guys are doing. This is fantastic. Yeah. Once I built the course, they priced it up quite higher because they like the product. They saw my audience and they were like, Well, it's price it up quite a bit more. And I did not like that.
31:48
And I told them and so I had, I, I really battled them and fought them on getting the price down because I was like, This is not okay what you're doing.
31:58
But in the end I had to do what I had to do. And I, you know, it really it was painful for me to promote that product, even though I was really proud of the product. I didn't like the price because I know what my audience is looking for. So it it perception really is everything sometimes. And and you have to take in especially where I'm at, I have to take these things into account because it could ruin I mean, just overnight you could
32:24
you could just promote one bad product, make one bad recommendation. That's like a scam or something. And then, you know, you have a huge knocked your reputation and that is really everything in this industry. And so I take it very, very, very seriously. Yeah, Yeah, I can imagine so. I mean, as small as the podcast, this people are reaching out for a position as a guest or a sponsorship thing. And I, I have no clue where to start like that business side of content creation.
32:51
I haven't even started with it. I haven't even considered it. So I have no clue what it takes to gain experience in that other than experiencing the things that you mentioned, right? Saying yes to what feels good, saying no to what doesn't feel good, and then experiencing what kind of red flags are in there or what could go wrong in such a process. But it seems it seems very difficult because there's nothing out there. You are your own brand, which means it hasn't been.
33:17
There's no one trailblazing except you, basically.
33:20
So yeah. I. I think that's very difficult sponsorships and the more business aspect of content creation do you have any other examples where you would say, okay, I found such a great fit and this was a real win win as well? Yeah, I would say most of the ones that I do are are really good fits. So like I partner pretty a lot with Udemy, I partner a lot with Coursera. Now these were the two platforms I primarily, you know, how I learned data analytics. When I first started out, I took a lot
33:51
of courses on Coursera, took a lot of course on Udemy. So like when they reached out to me wanting to sponsor, I was like, This is fantastic. This is exactly I was looking for. And they have been the best sponsors of the channel by far. I've had a lot of other sponsors, but those two have been perfect. It's because I know my audience is looking for good, really solid courses on data analytics at a good price. Yeah, and both of them offer their own variation of version of it.
34:14
And so those two have been to me like and I've been with both of them for like two years. So like I plan on, you know, continuing to be partners and have them as my sponsors for many years to come because it's been such a good relationship, not just with like my manager, like they call it like an account manager, not just with my account manager, but also with like just the the company and the type of product that they have. I like their product and so it's been really great.
34:42
Yeah, Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, Udemy is I, I a question like how did you learn a lot of stuff and I really couldn't figure out the word Udemy basically because I was like, there's this platform and you probably know it and I sometimes never finish the courses. Yeah, that's the one. So it's the number. That's the one. It's the one I've used myself the most because for me YouTube was always first and foremost, it made the most sense right next to just Google searching whatever you need to do.
35:08
When it came to tutorials, YouTube was free so I could always figure out where the quality is because I can see that behind the scenes. What's going on? Do I like it or not? Yeah. And then the next level for that for me was always stuff that is a little bit more affordable because you're not going to go from free to like a ten K course full shebang because you're not going to trust this. Exactly. You want that smaller step. And that's where I found Udemy.
35:29
And I was like, okay, this is a bit more tailor made, a bit more, maybe more reason, maybe a bit more established, I guess, for affordable price point. And especially if they hit you with the deals your ideal by that and probably do it. No, no, no time soon but still
35:45
so I recognize that as well when it comes to kind of a final thought I have is for me companies maybe I shouldn't generalize, but there's a issue with collecting a lot of data in the first place where companies need data to do analytics. But if there's no data, you can't do analytics as much. So then the notion is, okay, we need a lot of data, will store and save everything. And then you have this landscape of data where people are trying to find like these golden nuggets where building
36:17
your value based on the data that you have, all of a sudden you're going to focus on that. But if you collect garbage, you're not going to find any golden nuggets because what you collected is garbage as well. Like, I'm struggling in figuring out what the right way is to collect data or what you would focus on. And even how you don't collect as much data because some companies are not also collecting everything to the point where they have big data problems
36:42
When it comes to companies starting out with collecting data for them to then analyze on what would you advise to start off with? Usually you. Yeah, that's a super that's a super tough question.
36:55
I, I've worked with a lot of different companies and every company collects in some way similar data like a lot of like demographic for Yeah. You know their customer base and or clients or whatever you want to call them.
37:10
But the actual data that every company collects is very different. And even departments within companies are very, very different. Again, I don't know if I can make any recommendations on exactly what to collect, but,
37:28
you know, I think that you have to know what's going to drive your company forward, what's going to what's going to be the the thing that you're going to be like if this were to excel, if this were to go down, if this were to go up, that would change how we would do our business. Yeah, you track that, right? I think it's you have to figure out like the business questions first, like what's important in the business
37:50
before you start collecting data. Because like you said, one of the biggest issues and this is something that I've worked at a few startups with, so like they would have me come in and they're like, Hey, we want you to look at our our databases, look at our data and see, you know, and we want to walk you through like our strategy plan for growing the company. And that's like one of consultant. It was awesome. So I just went in and I took a look and I'm like,
38:11
you know, what do you do with all this historical data? Because you guys are storing like terabytes and terabytes of data back here. Like, what does this use for what do you? And we're like, Well, we don't have any use for it yet,
38:23
but we might. And I was like, well, this is like, you know, three years old. Yeah. When you first started the company, like, have you ever used it? Like, no, I'm like, okay, look, so your storage costs. And then we looked and I'm like, you know, you need to have like a retention plan in place, like, how long are you starting this data? How long is actually relevant? Because as his data becomes irrelevant after six months, then you don't need to store it after six months, or if you do, stored
38:45
in like a cold wallet or something that is super cheap to store because you guys are storing it like this hot wallet, like ready to use and it's costing a lot of money. And so I think that there's there's so many factors to that. It's really hard to it's really hard to make any single recommendation. But, you know, I think I think keeping a business focused or business mindset, even with the data that you're collecting, is really important.
39:10
Yeah, I like the statement that you made in looking at the variables that will shift. And if they shift, you will do your business operations differently. I think that is then an essence of the data you have to store. And I like that you also confirmed kind of my assumption because I'm not working the data base necessarily, but it is something I've heard from colleagues of different signals here and there that companies create their own big data problems just by virtue of storing everything.
39:35
And I don't think that is a good way of approaching that. That's a that's a I think, um, especially when they store it, as you say, in a way that they can just query real time. Right? But if never used it, you're never going to need it real time, which doesn't make any sense with the way you're storing it in that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's go ahead.
39:55
Is just, it's a problem that every company has. Like there's no company that has, like, perfect data. And so I think that the best thing you could do is just take a step back, really prioritize the like we talked about with other of the things that we've talked about is just prioritizing, right? Like, what's the most important things that you need to focus on right now and what things can wait And like really making sure those those data pipelines and the data storage is all like really good
40:24
for those things and then come behind and like what else would be nice to have? And then kind of like getting to that after. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I've really enjoyed this conversation and how it went from your joy in education, how you started your YouTube channel in the little side business you're creating. I'm sorry we didn't get to touch on everything. We we would have one or two or maybe the audience is still interested in things. When things go live, let me know.
40:48
I'll put it in the description so people can check it out when it is actually live. In other words, is there anything you'd still like to share before we leave off
40:56
of? You know, I do a lot of podcasts. I do a lot of webinars and stuff. Normally at the end, I like to make like a small,
41:07
a small little like snippet in there, if you don't mind. Okay. Which is, which is just that, you know, if you're listening to this and you're trying to break into tech or if you're trying to break into analytics or whatever you're trying to break into, really is that it does not matter your background, it does not matter where you came from, does not matter if you've never made over $20,000 in your life, you can do it. And just to like never give up and shoot for the stars and just keep going.
41:34
Whether you're in, you know, a country way across the world or in the United States or wherever anybody can do it, and it can be life changing. And so, you know, don't give up. Give it your all, like really put your effort into learning those skills and focusing on it. And I think I think anybody can make it if they put in the time, the effort and have the heart for it.
41:54
That's beautiful, man. No, no guest has ever taken the stage like that and sent out a message like that. That was awesome. Cool. We're going to round it off here, everyone. Thank you for listening. I'm going to put all Alex socials in the description below. Alex, the analyst, Alex Freberg. Check him out. Let him know you came from our show. And with that being said, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.
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