Data Breakthroughs - Episode 7: Small Company vs AI Giants
Real-world data problem solving in action! Jon Cooke (Founder of Dataception) and host Lior Barak tackle a classic David vs. Goliath scenario for the first time during the recording.
Problem Category: Data Strategy & Customer AnalyticsRuntime: 36 minutes
The Challenge: Small German seed company (7 people) with 600+ product varieties, 4 years of customer data, and 30 years of gardening expertise. They're losing to giants who use algorithms for personalized recommendations. Conversion rate: 2.1%. Sent tomato seeds in December while competitors suggested microgreens and winter planning guides. They have incredible data and domain knowledge - but no idea how to compete with automated personalization.
The Solution: You don't need massive tech teams. Start with customer segmentation workshops, map buying journeys, understand your data quality, build a simple recommendation engine (could be done in half a day), and test with friendly customers. The institutional knowledge trapped in people's heads is your competitive advantage - you just need to capture and automate it.
Key Takeaways:
Understand customers and segments first - technology second
Data quality dictates approach: good data = ML models, poor data = heuristic rules
Simple models beat no models - you don't need world-class data scientists
This is a business process problem with AI tools, not an AI problem
Small teams can compete by moving fast and testing with customers
Guest: Jon Cooke, Founder of Dataception20 years in data & AI | Former Databricks Solutions Architecture Lead | Ex-PwCExpert in data products, GenAI, and knowledge graphs
Connect with Jon:
Website: https://dataception.com
Company: Dataception
Get Involved: Submit your data problem: https://data-breakthroughs-podcast.cookingdata.blog/submit-problemBecome a guest: https://data-breakthroughs-podcast.cookingdata.blog/become-guestJoin the conversation: #DataBreakthrough
Full show notes & visual diagrams: [Link to newsletter version]
Disclaimer: This podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes. Solutions discussed are general frameworks - adapt them to your specific context and constraints.
Music: "Calisson" courtesy of Riverside
