Jeremy Weisz 12:14
So Luke, I could see how it would work in an agency. Now, I know you also work with school districts. So how would a school district actually use this?
Luke Komiskey 12:25
Yeah. What I love about data is that it really transcends like any industry that everyone has data that I could go on and on about different ways that organizations can take advantage of their data. But I personally found the school district use case incredibly interesting, because if you think about a school district, they’ve got in a typical district, they’ve got district staff, they’ve got individual schools that are like principals and school staff. And then if you think about the frontline employees, the frontline workers are the teachers that are day in and day out, educating the future of our country. And all of them have very different goals and what they’re trying to achieve, like a district staff, a superintendent is, is making promises and presenting to the public about what are the outcomes, we’re going to drive, whether increased testing scores, better just delivery of educational outcomes, there’s a lot of different ways that districts are having to measure them. And then if you go to the flip side of that with a teacher, you’ve got teachers that have already incredibly busy schedules, limited time. But imagine that right before a class is about to start, they’re able to go in and view insights about how this class of 20, 30 people that are about to enter this room are performing in math in reading and being able to easily see, are they showing up on time? Are they having disciplinary actions? Is there a trend? And how these like testing scores to figure out are there particular students that I can pay closer attention to? Or is there a kind of a broader way that I could approach this class differently? Because I’ve got real-time insights that I can look at five minutes before class is about to start.
Jeremy Weisz 13:59
How do you educate the school system to actually look at the stuff or gain access? Like how do they like have a teacher, does the school train them? How does it work? Because like you’re doing this amazing work. And then ultimately, everyone has to kind of even know it exists in the first place. How do they disseminate the information so people can actually use it?
Luke Komiskey 14:23
Yeah. And what’s cool about the schools that we’ve worked with is that there’s already that natural demand there of people are already piecing together their own Excel spreadsheets of trying to get those types of insights into how their district is doing or how their classes are performing. But I think another benefit of really what we provide with manage analytic services is not only plugging in the platform that’s combining these multiple systems and bringing together student data from all different places. So that’s the platform piece, but the other piece is we provide that ongoing support. And so what that looks like can be different for different organizations, but it can be report development, it can be business analysis. And then another one that many companies take advantage of, from our services is just ongoing doctors hours and trainings. So being able to have an open time for teachers or district staff to be able to come in and ask questions of what else could we be doing with our data? Because to your point, not everyone is thinking in terms of how can I use data to make my job easier, but they all at fundamentally have questions about how can I be more efficient in the role that I’m doing? And so having a space for people to be able to ask that question through formal doctors hours, or shared channels that they have with us, we can help translate that into a data-driven insight that they can find with the reporting platform that we’re hosting for them?
Jeremy Weisz 15:43
I know this is a very kind of granular question, but so I’m a teacher. Is there like something I log into to get that, like, how do I actually access the data and insights?
Luke Komiskey 15:56
Yeah, yeah, there’s either the main reporting platform, one that we use and have been a heavy partner of for years has been Tableau, which is an industry-leading data visualization, self-service platform. So many of our organizations take advantage of Tableau’s existing platform that is available through the browser to be able to log in. What’s great about those platforms is that, for many organizations that have the application management, it is a single sign-on into being able to see those reports. But another thing that we do provide is being able to create white-labeled reporting portals are reporting experiences. And so imagine you could go to portal.godatadrive.com, which is a real link, to be able to check out or be able to log in to the insights portal, and then easily find content that’s specific to your role. And make that a frictionless experience on being able to find insights quickly, because especially within schools, very limited time. And so we want to make the fastest way we can deliver insights directly to them.
Jeremy Weisz 16:59
It sounds like from an onboarding perspective, like to them, it shows up oh, this is magic thing that I log into? What does it look like for you as a company, though, because you must have to pull data from like, all these random, fragmented sources. Yeah, maybe test scores over here that maybe this? I don’t know, what does it look like in the onboarding process to create this type of solution?
Luke Komiskey 17:25
Yeah, for any organization we bring on, you know, school districts are the same. It’s building out an inventory of what are the business questions or, like, analysis that they’re looking to do? And understanding where is that data logged today. And for us, it’s identifying the application ecosystem. And so, for most companies, that isn’t just one source that rules them all. And that’s the challenge that most organizations have with building an analytics platform is like my data sitting all over the place and a CRM and an ERP and a spreadsheet randomly. And so during that discovery and implementation process that we do for setting up that reporting platform, is understanding is there a student information system is there’s state assessment scores, is there some kind of attendance log that we’re able to tap into, and our secret sauce as a data company is being able to build out custom connectors, and overall, just kind of what we call ELT and data warehousing solutions, so that we can monitor that data coming in and out and alert everyone if anything breaks, or anything changes and be able to fix that without people needing to, I guess appreciate all the complexity behind the scenes, like, our goal is to kind of make it look like magic that this data shows up in one place. But there is a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure that this concept of student ID matches across multiple systems, that isn’t easy. And that’s where we come in to make that seamless.
Jeremy Weisz 17:40
Talk about as a company, usually, when people start off with the company, the niche they serve, and the people they serve is not what ends up. Right. So talk about the evolution of niche like when you first started, what did the clients look like? And then how did it evolve to what it is now.
Luke Komiskey 19:13
So when I first started DataDrive, it was really like that first year if we go way back that first year was me being an experienced data consultant and transitioning into data freelancing life. And for me, it was leaning in on network and referrals to find whoever wanted data help and I could somewhat scope out a project and how we can help we would serve them and really over the course of like the first half of DataDrives life it continued to be that of…
Jeremy Weisz 19:42
What type of companies were coming to you we were finding we’re attracted to what you’re doing?
Luke Komiskey 19:46
Yeah, it was all over the place. I had a manufacturer that did a lot of like wedding invitations and notebooks I had big Fortune 500 companies like General Mills that I was taking advantage of tools like Tableau to be able to dig into their various insights across like CPG data sources, had healthcare companies for like population management and trying to measure health outcomes. And so like what I found during that first half is like we were building a lot of fantastic data products. But every piece of that required me or my team to have to, like build up just a higher high level enough of what they what insights they needed. And so, as part of just like the evolution, I think, as me as an entrepreneur, and also just recognizing, like, how difficult it is to both like scale, the cool products that we’re building, but also an understanding of like, what are the unique challenges within the organization is really where I’ve, like leaned in on niching down, because it’s, I think it’s easier to market to, it’s easier to sell, it’s easier to build products, because many times 50 60% of that work can kind of be done. Because it’s the same system. It’s the same metrics, everyone, and especially, I mean, all just all companies are like this, but especially in school districts, I think at the end of the day, school districts are all trying to measure the same thing based around student outcomes. There’s only so many ways you can cut and slice that, and everyone’s data sources are generally about the same. And they’re just looking to answer the same questions. And so yeah, like, to your point, when I started DataDrive, I would have never imagined seven years later that it’d be talking about school district analytics has been just one of those where one lead comes in, and you put a little effort into marketing and you find a few more that it’s been easier for me to have conversations about what a school district challenges are, what their pain points are. And on the delivery side to make it really streamline for us to know exactly what applications to ask for, and go after and deliver that in record time. And I think it’s a benefit to our customers, as well as a benefit to our like, ability to be efficient as a business. And that’s been it’s been a cool learning, but unfortunately took me seven years to get there.
Jeremy Weisz 19:51
That’s great. I want to talk about the evolution of the services themselves to you said, you started off with some services, and then talk about how it evolved to now.
Luke Komiskey 22:22
Yeah, so when I first started, I came from a consulting background. And really like all I knew from my former consulting background is that we would go to really large companies, often responding to RFPs. And put together like fixed-scope engagements, or even just like hourly consulting engagements. And so if you think about some of our bigger companies we worked with, they would sign up to take X number of people for 40 hours a week for the next two quarters. And the way to deliver that, and the way to sell that is pretty, like well understood, right? This is pre-COVID, I’ve got a lot of local Minnesota consultants driving into an office every day, literally spending nine to five at an office like essentially a full-time employee at that company, but under the banner of DataDrive. And part of the evolution of those services is recognizing that like one to scale, that type of operation requires more people going into more offices all the time. And from the operation side of it, it means that you’ve got more people that need to be sold on more projects at more companies. And so for me, it was like that, that scaling part of it really tough and then you throw in a global pandemic that we can talk about, like that completely flips the formula on going into the office and like what our expectations I’m like, how work is delivered.
Jeremy Weisz 23:46
Talk about that for a second. So typical engagement, you said, pre-COVID people are going in there, what does it look like post-COVID?
Luke Komiskey 23:53
Yeah, and like when I started the consultancy, like my big, like pitch to people was like, you can be a consultant and not have to go to the airport. Because so many people are just trying to get off the road. And then now you throw on a global pandemic, where not going to an airport is kind of table stakes for doing a job. And even for our customers, they didn’t want us in the office. And so like we were able to actually win a lot of new work by just being top of mind because you’re literally sitting within the cubicles to win that additional work. And so for me, it’s like the way we sold the way we kind of rely on new leads the way that we could pitch the value to our existing employees and new employees completely changed. And, yeah, I mean, I think it was like, during that time is where I really started to look into more of like what are ways that you can kind of scale an organization that doesn’t require a kind of one-for-one match of a customer needing somebody full time in the office and employee expecting or wanting to even go into an office for 40 hours a week like there’s a complete mismatch of that.
Jeremy Weisz 25:01
You touched on this a little bit, but how have you found to attract top talent? Because you’re working with large organizations? Right. And I mean, one is obviously a selling point, you don’t have to travel all the time. But what are some other ways that you’ve been able to attract top talent to your company?
Luke Komiskey 25:21
Yeah, for us, a big part of our success has been leaning in on like technology partnerships, I mentioned Tableau earlier. And what’s been great about our growth is that I understand the Tableau ecosystem, I know how to sell through partnerships. And so what’s great for top talent to be interested throughout the lifespan of DataDrive is, we have always been able to find the most interesting challenging ways to use certain types of software. So it’s easier to find people that understand and are excited to use that type of software and be able to be challenged across multiple different companies, I think the biggest value that people get into just whether it’s consulting or any kind of agency is you get the opportunity to be exposed to many different organizations. And so you can often find really hungry people that want to experience different organizations, but be comfortable within a technology become an expert in the technology to be able to drive that type of growth. And I think also, like pre-COVID, being able to offer a consultancy that didn’t require you having to leave your family life and go off and live in a hotel was a huge value add of was able to get really talented people that want to do interesting work, but didn’t want to be away from their family.
Jeremy Weisz 25:40
Did that help? I mean, so pre-COVID expectation for these companies like we want FaceTime. So the expectations shifted a lot after COVID that has that come back at all? Or how’s that affected?
Luke Komiskey 26:53
I think people in general are hungry for in-person interactions, I think, I mean, the level isn’t nearly what it was pre-COVID expectations, especially, like I’m in the data space, I think so much of what we do is just naturally online. And so I think a lot of the great data talent really doesn’t have a reason to have to go into an office. And so I think there’s just an understanding that, hey, I can do my job from the comfort of my home. And for me, that’s what I’ve leaned in on building remote virtual culture now. From our clients perspective, I think what’s interesting now is we work with companies that we never meet in person, people ask, like, how often do you go into their office? And I’m like, I mean, there’s been clients that we’ve worked with three, four years at this point that we’ve actually never met outside of a zoom call. And I think it’s nice if when, when we’re able to travel and see them in person, I think that’s a huge still value add and like ways that I’m trying to figure out how do you safely kind of insert that back into normal life? Because people are hungry for face-to-face interactions. But I found that for the work that we do, it’s actually opened up how like pre-COVID, I would say 80% of my business happened in Minnesota. And now 80% of my business happens outside of Minnesota, like it’s just that big of a flip.
Jeremy Weisz 28:08
Talk about remote culture for a second. And what do you do to maintain a remote culture?
Luke Komiskey 28:16
Yeah, the biggest thing that I found is, first of all, finding people that have either experienced remote culture life or understand what they’re signing up for. I think one of the things that as especially like during these, like first one or two years, where like everyone was doing remote work is, it’s kind of the same thing I experienced as a freelancer is, it’s fun, and a novel experience for the first like six to 12 months. But I think after that you start to find out whether your personality or work style, or even like your life situation is really set up for success to do remote work. So the biggest things that like I think about is to provide a strong remote virtual culture is to really lean in on like flexibility and not having expectations around being your Slack Green from nine to five every day. And I think for the people that are on our team, the ability to just leave for kids events, or to know that you’re on at every point during the business hours is a huge value add but it takes certain personalities that can be able to kind of flip on and flip off. And so I think the biggest thing for me about building remote culture is building a culture that is more based around results and outcomes versus time in front of a computer. I think that it can be a big shift, especially for consultancies and agencies that are like still very built around the billable hour. You’re trying to measure time in a world where like you have no idea what people are doing at their home offices. You can kind of see that now people are trying to get people back to these expensive offices. And I think for talented data people if you can offer an environment where like, I don’t actually really care when you work, I care about what you get done. I think that can be really appealing for some of the top talent out there.
Jeremy Weisz 30:01
I want to go, Luke, I mentioned the very beginning about, there was a point where you just traveled the world, you went to 28 countries, I think you and your wife, quit your job, sold everything and traveled? Why did you do that in the first place? What possessed you to do that, and then we’ll talk about some of the learnings.
Luke Komiskey 30:25
So, the big thing for me in my life just in general is like I want to live a great story. And for me, I kind of view my story as these like ongoing, interesting chapters, where I’m learning more about myself and just growing as a person. I’ve always had a little bit of travel in my life through like high school, and then even in college, my now wife and I both studied abroad during the same semester, but she was in Australia, and I was in Greece. So we had a long term, or long distance relationship. But we didn’t experience the world together. And so for everything that I kind of do in life, I always look at people that are just kind of that next stage in life, whether it’s like five or 10 years ahead of me and just like understand what are those like, I don’t know, regrets or things that they wish they would have taken advantage of. And a common one I heard, when I get to that life stage of like the mid-20s, was, I wish we would have traveled more because like travel with kids is just different, or it takes a long time to get back to that stage where like travel is the same as like having it with kids, because you need them to be old enough to not have a bunch of special setups to make that happen. So I, my wife, and I very much took that to hire, we now have two kids. But this trip happened in 2016. And we just were at this point where like, I think we’re both doing really well in our careers. And it was every reason not to leave. But we knew that every day we stay would be just another reason to just like stay on the track that we were on. And so I’m not quite sure what possessed us to like, make that decision. Finally, I mean, I remember that night vividly of like buying the one-way ticket to Tokyo and being like, all right, like now we’re not to quit our jobs. And here we go. But I am so thankful for doing that experience. Because one now that I have kids, if you don’t have kids and are listening to this, please travel before you have them because it is different. And second of all, I think I owe so much about how like my personality is today, I think my tolerance for taking risks. And actually, living a life where I can kind of like I can plan out what I want to do and really own that script versus having a professional job telling me what that script is going to be in that year of 2016 is really where like, my entrepreneurial fire really started up, I knew that I needed to start making some moves that have led to who I am today, and so very thankful for doing that.
Jeremy Weisz 32:39
What were some of the memorable moments along the trip that you still think back on and learn from?
Luke Komiskey 32:48
Now the two that come to mind is one I loved absolutely. Like our favorite country was New Zealand. My wife and I are huge outdoor fanatics. And the way we tackle that was just so fun and interesting because for two weeks, we rented a Toyota Corolla, we went to a Walmart equivalent to buy $100 worth of camping gear, Salvation Army to pick up some warm clothes. And for two weeks, we were like living out of a car, putting up a tent at night, or if it was raining, we would like sleep inside the vehicle. And I remember just like one night in particular just raining hard. We had a park at a golf course I cooked instant noodles under the awning and at the golf course. I just like I remember that so much because I think about how fun and free and kind of like just like stress-free I felt in that space that anytime like now in my life where I just get really stressed out or worked out or like unsure about what is like the negative consequence that’s going to happen. I’m like, if I found happiness by like being instant noodles, and a golf course in New Zealand, like I think I’ve already lived like the worst outcome and I was incredibly free and happy in that moment. So above everything like the between New Zealand and then like traveling in Southeast Asia where there’s just a whole new level of income disparity and just like how people live but yet they find happiness, I think always gives me a reminder of like setting expectations of I think it’s easy to get stuck in this American dream of more and more and more work harder. And to like really set expectations of at the end of the day, we’re all just humans trying to like make it work on this earth and give perspective of what it means to live a fulfilling life and often that doesn’t happen just by working really hard.
Jeremy Weisz 34:33
At what point you said you bought the one-way ticket there what point do you decide okay, I think this trip is coming to an end here.
Luke Komiskey 34:43
So I’m a numbers guy. I know you’d be surprised by this but…
Jeremy Weisz 34:46
Very surprised. Yeah, you’re like I have this whole town. I had this whole dashboard now built the…
Luke Komiskey 34:53
I mean, I did and so we like had our down payment on our house that that’s what we used instead of getting our first house, we just use that as our travel funds. And for me, I had this fancy spreadsheet behind the scenes that was just tracking every single expense. And my goal after reading a few travel blogs was, I want to travel for the whole year for $50 a day per person. And so every single expense was always just tracking this main KPI of $50 a day, you go to places like Japan, you go to places like Australia, you go to places like Western Europe, that metric runs really hot. And then you go to places like Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe, and now that number starts to go down. So I knew that with our funds that we would be able to last until Thanksgiving of 2016. And that was exactly when we came back. So I always kind of knew our numbers, I knew what we were trying to plan for. And honestly, I think about 11 months on the road of being unemployed. We were ready to come back. Now I’m ready to leave again. But we are ready to come back at that point.
Jeremy Weisz 35:51
Oh, talk about learnings in the relationship. Right? You’re with your wife, you’re in a vehicle for two weeks. In a closed space, what were some of the learnings relationship-wise?
Luke Komiskey 36:08
One of the coolest experience ever, like I would recommend as like the ultimate marriage test is spend over 11 months with every waking moment with your spouse. Because through thick and thin you find yourself in stressful situations. You find yourself hungry trying to find food. I mean, we experienced everything that to the point of like you have lunch or dinner with your significant other and you’re usually talking about like what happened in your day or who said something. But like imagine for 11 months, you’re sharing every single memory that there’s like nothing to talk about, because you guys both experienced it together. And yeah, it was amazing for our marriage, just being able to like I guess just experience life with and we were relatively like newlyweds. So just be able to like experience life through that lens together was like our first really a big like shared experience and something that we can always come back to and talk about. So yeah, I loved everything about that. And it truly did strengthen the relationship because I mean, you have no choice there. You’re your travel buddy, you have to work out everything in real-time. Where I think like in normal life, you can kind of just go off and do your own thing and not get down to the core things you need to be talking about.
Jeremy Weisz 37:25
Yeah, Luke, thanks for sharing that. I have one last question. Before I ask it, I want to just point people to check out godatadrive.com to learn more. They have some great resources there that you can check out. But Luke, my last question is just mentors. That could be books that could be actual people. Who are some of the mentors have influenced your business journey?
Luke Komiskey 37:52
Yeah, I mean, I have to start by giving a just a shout-out to the Entrepreneurs Organization, of course, the one that you mentioned at the beginning, because for me, I felt like I was learning and figuring out things pretty well on my own. But until I found Entrepreneurs Organization and realize that people are thinking about it, just very differently and just can give me new ideas to think about these mentors have been specifically for like my forum. And so within EO you’ve got a group of people that you’re meeting with on a monthly basis. My forum in particular has been with me through the thick and thin of just like figuring out both like, personal things as well as my own professional journey and helped me I guess, think differently about what I’m trying to get out of my life, what I’m trying to get out of my business. And it’s really like been instrumental about what like the learnings and the pivots that I get an opportunity to talk about today during this time together. Another one that stands out to me is just in particular is our old managing director from a consulting company right before I started DataDrive. Really, like had no reason because for as far as he know, like I was a great employee that left to go travel the world and never came back. And he was instrumental during my first year of consulting because I had no clue what I was doing. This guy would help me review master services agreements helped me figure out how to write up like a statement of work myself. And just was incredibly supportive about helping me find success when it really is like, there was no gain for him outside of just helping me and so I think about him a lot just because it has really helped me set us up for success and always like I very much subscribe to that, once you make it to the top like got to send the elevator back down. And yeah, I think he’s just been a really good mentor. And like, as I’m talking about him, I’m realizing it’s been a while since I’ve said hi to him. So I might you might have inspired me.
Jeremy Weisz 39:56
What do you think, motivated him to help? Like you said, there’s no gain on his part, necessarily, but like, besides just the good deed of helping.
Luke Komiskey 40:11
Yeah, I kind of view it like he was a just, he had found so much success in consulting he was really just like the highest you could go at that level within the firm. And I think for him, it was just a way of like, he’s got a lot of interesting knowledge. And I kind of joined that firm at a time where I owe a lot about how I sell and how I think about positioning services and how I think about the metrics of running a consultancy. Like I learned that by just joining meetings with him and just like osmosis, those ideas so I think for him, it’s just like, once you kind of figured it out, and I don’t know if he has it all figured out but he wants he’s I think is just a great opportunity for him to give back and like even now when I reflect on just everyone I know in the entrepreneurs organization like the reason why I go to these events and meet up with people like you, Jeremy is the most random stories and shared experiences that people provide like completely like unlock a new way of thinking for me and I just I love hanging out in the same rooms with people and just kind of seeing what comes out, it’s a really cool feeling.
Jeremy Weisz 41:17
What about from a books perspective? I’m looking over your shoulder there I see some books on under the plant there I don’t know if those are some of your favorites more some favorite books that you enjoy?
Luke Komiskey 41:29
Yeah, the latest one and I’m probably gonna butcher the title but we’ll see if we get it right. The Gap in the Game?
Jeremy Weisz 41:36
Sure. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan.
Luke Komiskey 41:42
Yeah, that’s been just an incredible book. I think finding me at the right time because I think so much of going through a business pivot as you think about all the things that you didn’t think about the first time like the gap of what you should have done and I think helping me position about think about how much I’ve gained now to be able to make those decisions as like put me just better mentally in a good spot and just very appreciative that book just like found me at the right time. Yeah, I mean the other things that I like really subscribe to as well as EOS entrepreneurs operating system Traction is kind of their main book but they’ve got many in the Gino Wickman library. That has been really helpful for me taking it from a scrappy freelance operation to like growing up with a pretty simple system but hard to execute if you’re not committed but that’s helped me get to new heights about building something that can live beyond me and an actual asset versus just Luke creating a job out of being a freelancer.
Jeremy Weisz 42:43
Yeah, and check, there was an interview I did with Gino Wickman you could check that out. He’s the author of Traction, several other books and also Mark Winters who co-authored with Gino Wickman Rocketfuel. That’s also a really good interview and good book as well. You ever right there?
Luke Komiskey 42:58
Yeah, that’s the orange book.
Jeremy Weisz 43:00
So check those out. Luke, I want to be the first one to thank you. Thanks for sharing your journey, your knowledge your lessons everyone can check out godatadrive.com To learn more, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks, Luke.
Luke Komiskey 43:22
Thank you.
