When Big Data is not so big anymore

sasha uritsky

Oct 11, 2014

We are inundated with information. There is so much information around us they coined a special term - Big Data. To emphasize the sheer size of it.

It is, of course, a problem - to deal with a large amount of data. Various solutions have been created to address it efficiently.

At nmodes we developed a semantic technology that accurately filters relevant conversations. We applied it to social networks, particularly Twitter. Twitter is a poster child of Big Data. They have 500 million conversations every day. A staggering number. And yet, we found that for many topics, when they are narrowed down and accurately filtered, there are not that many relevant conversations after all.

No more than 5 people are looking for CRM solutions on an average day on Twitter. Even less - two per day on average - are asking for new web hosting providers explicitly, although many more are complaining about their existing providers (which might or might not suggest they are ready to switch or looking for a new option).

We often have businesses coming to us asking to find relevant conversations and expecting a large number of results. This is what Big Data is supposed to deliver, they assume. Such expectation is likely a product of our ‘keyword search dependency’. Indeed, when we run a keyword search on Twitter, or search engines, or anywhere we get a long list of results. The fact that most of them (up to 98% in many cases) are irrelevant is often lost in the visual illusion of having this long, seemingly endless, list in front of our eyes.

With the quality solutions that accurately deliver only relevant results we experience, for the first time, a situation when there are no longer big lists of random results. Only several relevant ones.

This is so much more efficient. It saves time, increases productivity, clarifies the picture, and makes Big Data manageable.

Time for businesses to embrace the new approach.

Interested in reading more? Check out our other blogs:

One Fast Way To Increase Your Online Sales

Chatbots and conversational AI solutions offer easy and reliable sales channel.

Chatbots are helpful because they not only engage with your customers, they also retain them. This means that unlike other forms of marketing, chatbots keep your customers entertained for longer. For example, when a user has a customer care inquiry, the chatbot can answer it accurately and take the conversation a step further by offering personalized shopping advice based on the customer's purchase history and preferences.

Chatbots make communication with your brand proactive, thus enhancing your brand's reputation. By increasing interactions, they make a positive effect on your sales numbers.

Chatbots allow your business to reach out to a wider audience. They can gather and analyze customer feedback and data. Send relevant notifications. Make communicating with your brand more fun.

Chatbots help with top of funnel conversions. Offering your online customers a highly personalized experience of your site with the addition of a chatbot can help guide consumers down the sales funnel, and ultimately influence their buying decisions.

To summarize, chatbots opens new opportunities for you to increase sales. Opportunities that are easy to use and are not costly. Better not to miss them!

Reality of Bootstrapping

Going after investors? Do you know that less than 1 percent of startups actually raise VC (or angel) capital, which means that the vast majority are self-funded. Yet the main reason for it simply lies in the inability of most companies to find investors.

Bootstrapping, however, has several strategic advantages for your company's future growth. Perhaps the biggest is retaining the majority of shares and control over the strategy and direction your company is moving towards.

It also teaches financial discipline. Bootstrapping at the start helps to understand the importance of revenue and cash flow, as opposed to unabridged product development, and keeps you connected to your company's financial reality. Only when profitability increase do you then green-light new opportunities, increased risk-taking, and growth acceleration.

In reality, the founders are expected to be flexible. While entrepreneurs have certain intentions and philosophies when they are starting out, a hallmark trait for successful founders is the ability to adapt to changing environments and opportunities.

Sometimes, that means waiting a long time to generate the financial metrics that really matter, revenue and profit. By challenging your leadership team to focus on building the business organically and figuring out how to make the company consistently profitable on a model that can scale without VC capital, you make your company more valuable to future investors.