How Our Product Analytics Platform Is Becoming Enterprise-Ready

At Stormly, our goal is to help small businesses hold their own against the big players in the industry. These big guys often have the best people and the best resources. We made our tool to give the little guys a fighting chance, and its power and versatility hasn’t slipped past the notice of the bigger companies.

These large corporations often bump into issues when using ready-made solutions, like their inherent limitations. One big problem is the long onboarding process that fast-growing companies have to go through.

This means missing out on chances while new Product Managers get the hang of the tool. Plus, even with traditional data tools, Product Managers often struggle to figure out what and how to look for the answers they need. It’s hard to understand the results, and they often have to ask the data team for help. This all leads to a lot of wasted time.

So, we wanted to give Product Managers in big companies a tool that’s easy to use, quick to learn, but still packs a punch like the best data analysis tools out there.

With this mission in mind, we got started on the Feasibility Study, supported by Provincie Noord Holland.

When you pull up a dashboard in Stormly, you’ll find it loads up pretty quick, no matter how many reports it has or how complex they are. Dashboards are really important in Stormly, so we make sure they load up as fast as possible.

Dashboards can be really big, so it would be a pain to wait for each report to load in real time. This could mean waiting for more than a minute, which is just too long for everyday use.

We’ve tinkered with things behind the scenes to cut down on wait times when you need the latest results. When using Stormly, it’s not unusual to have 10 or more dashboards, and more than 100 reports.

But in day-to-day use, maybe only 20% of these are actually accessed. So, 80% of the reports are updated all the time, even though nobody is checking them out every day. This means our query servers spend most of their time working on stuff that’s not really being used.

We’ve put in a change that automatically stops updating dashboards and reports that haven’t been looked at for more than two weeks. When you open them, they get updated right away with the latest data. This takes a lot of pressure off our query servers, which you’ll notice when you run a new report or get fresh data from your dashboards.

We’ve also made a big change to cut down the wait time when you run a new report or update a report or dashboard. Before, when you opened a report like Active Users, we had to run several different queries one after the other. For example, one for daily users, one for weekly users, and one for monthly users. But now, we’ve updated our tech so we can run all of them at the same time. For most reports, this means waiting times are half or even less!

By lightening the load on the query servers and stopping unneeded updates, we’ve made it a lot faster and easier for you to get the results you need.

To make all this happen, we spent time talking with large companies, attending events and accelerators, and doing a ton of research and brainstorming. The early stages of our R&D project feasibility study involved a lot of things, like deep-dive research, trying out prototypes, checking if our solutions could scale, and having conversations with potential customers.

In the tech department, we conducted detailed research to fully understand the current tech landscape and predict what might be coming next. This research was beefed up by testing out prototype versions of our solution, checking if they worked effectively and were user-friendly.

Another big part of the job was assessing if our system could cope with growth and handle more and more data. We also ran benchmarks, load tests, and developed software to carry out these tests, aiming to rigorously test the technical feasibility of our ideas.

Besides the tech stuff, we also had in-depth conversations with potential clients. Our technical expertise was crucial in understanding what these customers needed and shaping our R&D project to effectively meet these needs. There were also some tech-heavy discussions with experts and developers in the world of distributed databases.

On the research side, we conducted comprehensive competitive analysis to fully understand market dynamics, identify where our competitors were positioned, and find unique opportunities for Stormly Our research strategy also involved direct interactions with large companies and peers, which provided valuable insights into market needs and trends.

We used several outreach strategies, such as email and LinkedIn networking, to connect with decision-makers in companies. These activities not only deepened our understanding of the needs of potential clients but also allowed us to gather helpful feedback on our project proposal.

Eager to showcase our product and receive valuable feedback from industry leaders, we participated in initiatives like the Nova Fintech Accelerator, organized by Nova Business School in Portugal.

This platform allowed us to meet with decision-makers from companies such as Millennium Bank, Sibs, Banco Primus, Jeronimo Martins, and more. Our active participation led to our selection for four ongoing pilot projects, which could be crucial for the successful implementation of the R&D project.

We also attended the TNW event in Amsterdam, and as featured guests at a roundtable discussion. This provided an opportunity to engage in enlightening discussions with industry leaders, as well as advocates for AI. These interactions helped gather valuable insights and network with key industry players.

In summary, the feasibility study covered a wide range, including technical and market research, prototype testing, and stakeholder involvement. These collective efforts allowed us to deeply understand market dynamics, technology viability, and potential customer needs, which will ultimately determine the feasibility and direction of the R&D project.

In summary, following our intensive study funded by Provincie Noord Holland, we’re thrilled to announce that our first improvements to reach high scalability are live, significantly improving waiting times to get fresh data from your dashboards and reports.

Furthermore, we’ve gained valuable insights into the workings of large corporations and have tailored our tool to seamlessly fit their needs. This level of readiness marks an exciting milestone in our journey as we look forward to empowering businesses, big and small, with our robust and user-friendly tool.