Mindful data collection in the age of data chaos

MICHAEL KATZ:

I think every company is either trying to grow their business, to run it more efficiently, or to transform it in some way, shape, or form. Data — customer data, more specifically — is really quite high-leverage, right, because it allows you to create predictability in the results that you are attempting to seek.

INTRO:

You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. I'm Spike Jones, General Manager of Khoros Strategic Services.

And I'm Staci Satterwhite, Chief Customer Officer at Khoros. In each episode, we'll share the customer experience stories and insights you need, straight from the sharpest minds in CX, so you can better connect with your customers.

And make them customers for life. Let’s start the show.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of CX Confessions. I'm Staci Satterwhite, joined by my incredible co-host Spike Jones.

SPIKE JONES:

Oh, that's so nice. So nice.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

As always, Spike. Good to see and hear you. How are you?

SPIKE JONES:

I'm good. I'm good. You know, I'm good. There's a lot of great things going on. Complete, total, out of the blue, has nothing to do — but an anecdote, but I’m so excited because “Top Gun: Maverick” just came out on digital. I saw it twice in the theater. I mean look, that was our second VHS tape, I think. Our first was “The Final Countdown.” So if you're playing along at home, my dad loved the navy. Actually, he was in the army but loved the navy. Our third VHS tape was “Ferris Bueller's Day Off.”

STACI SATTERWHITE:
Classic.

SPIKE JONES:

But “Top Gun,” near and dear to my heart. But man, Maverick, wow, just super cool. So it came out like I think on Tuesday, I watched it Tuesday night, I watched it Wednesday night. So, I'm a fan. I'm a fan. So all that to say, I'm good.

But you, Staci, let’s turn to work. What's going on in the industry? You're actually up in Chicago for a conference. What's going on?

STACI SATTERWHITE:

I am indeed, although I still haven't seen “Top Gun: Maverick,” so I’m glad it came out on digital.

SPIKE JONES:

Oh it’s so good. I’m so jealous.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

I did rewatch the original, but I gotta go —

SPIKE JONES:

Oh, I can't wait to talk about it with you.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yay, okay. We’ll do it.

SPIKE JONES:

Keep going.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yes, so I'm actually in a hotel room in Chicago. I am at a couple different AWS events. Specifically, there was an AWS Women's Summit yesterday. And I got indoctrinated in all things AWS. As our listeners may know, we have a partnership with Amazon Connect to help us create that single pane of glass for an agent to get all of their customer data into one particular place, including voice, which is where Amazon Connect comes in. So I had a really great day yesterday with all the folks at AWS. Thank you so much for hosting me here in Chicago. Very much a learning opportunity and they did an event last night at what's called the Wrigley Rooftops. Have you been, lately, to a Cubs game here in Chicago?

SPIKE JONES:

No I haven’t. I want to go. Tell me more about that. That sounds awesome.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

It's super. So I lived in Chicago many, many years ago. It's super interesting. They've taken the rooftops of many buildings around the Wrigley stadium and just put, like, actual stadium seats in it. So you're walking up the stairs of an old building past people's apartments into stadium seating. A very unique experience. So anyway, if you haven't been, do the Wrigley Rooftops experience.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely. Now it's on my list. Appreciate you sharing.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yeah. Well, moving on to our episode today.

We get to talk to Michael Katz. Michael is the co founder and CEO of a company called mParticle, a customer data platform that helps brands unify data across all consumer touchpoints to optimize marketing outcomes and customer experience, and you know how passionate I am about focusing on value and outcomes for a business, because that's what we get paid to do.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely, absolutely and data — there's so much of it out there. So I’m looking forward to talking to him.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Previously, Michael was the founder and CEO of a company called interclick, which he took public in 2009 when he was in his 20s. Okay, now I'm feeling a little bit like a slouch. Later in 2011, Michael and the team sold the company to Yahoo for 270 million. Yes, it was probably a good day for Michael and his team.

SPIKE JONES:

Not bad at all. And you know, I’m an entrepreneur, and a long time ago I had a boss who was an entrepreneur who always said entrepreneurs raise entrepreneurs, and we actually learn about a little bit about that with Michael today. So, so excited to talk to him, especially about his perspective when it comes to data and data chaos.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yeah, me too. Finally, about Michael. He previously sat on the Board of Directors for Brightline and Adaptly, which was acquired by Accenture. So total opposite end of the spectrum, to start at Accenture.

I too spent some time at Accenture, ironically here in downtown Chicago. And then finally, Michael is also a mentor at an organization called Techstar. So I'm super excited to hear from Michael about his vast experience and experience with data today.

SPIKE JONES:

Oh, yeah, it's just gonna be a good one. So you're gonna want to stick around to hear more of what Michael has to say about data complexity, tips on aspiring founders, and much, much more.

All right, and with that, please welcome Michael Katz to the show. Welcome, Michael.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Hey, what's up?

SPIKE JONES:

Great to have you here. You're coming to us from London but your home base is in New York. So thanks for spending some time with us.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely. So you know, we're just gonna jump right into it. You are the CEO of mParticle, you have been a founder, you've been in leadership roles at some amazing companies. Can you share a little bit more about your background and how you ended up co-founding mParticle please?

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, I can. So it's been about a 20 year entrepreneurial career so far. So, I graduated college in 2000 from Syracuse with degrees in economics and finance. I jumped right into working for a company called Zephyr which was one of the early internet consultancies back in the day, and it was an incredible but short lived experience. They were like directly in the center of the dotcom boom and bust.

SPIKE JONES:

Nice.

MICHAEL KATZ:

And so yeah.

SPIKE JONES:

Good times.

MICHAEL KATZ:

I saw just an amazing culture being created. And then also how believing your own hype can lead to your downfall because they burned through like $100 million in like 18 months, which was forever scarring.

SPIKE JONES:
Ooh.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

That's almost impressive in its own way.

MICHAEL KATZ:

It was. Like at that point it wasn't uncommon, but there was like, sometimes you have to learn how to do things and sometimes you have to learn equally how not to do things. So I learned a little bit about that there. Then I went to work for Accenture for a few years. And then —

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Opposite end of the spectrum.

MICHAEL KATZ:

It was like, I think I was like, a little bit PTSD from the whole experience. I was like, I'm not going to chase the startup dream for a bit. Maybe I gotta see what great looks like at a big company. So I'm gonna go do that. My dad's an entrepreneur and so I think I always knew I was going to do something, and I just didn't know what.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

It sounds like it's in your blood.

MICHAEL KATZ:

It very much is. I just didn't know what or where, when or how, but a couple of opportunities presented themselves and those opportunities ended up informing the early opportunity that we pursued at my first company, interclick. interclick was in the adtech space, and this is mid-2000s. The market, the landscape, is totally different these days. And we placed the bet in 2009 that the cost of storage was continuing to trend towards basically zero and at the time. We had a bunch of competitors that had these proprietary data networks, and we felt like all of it was interesting, but none of it was interesting at the same time, and we felt like if we could break down the walls, unify a lot of this data that people have struggled to access, help them make sense of it, we could build a better brain and a better mousetrap, call it what you want, and we did.

And some of the core principles that went into the system design carried forward into mParticle, but we launched that product in 2009. And we saw just explosive growth thereafter because we were able to help our customers make better sense of the world around them and we grew revenue by 600% subsequently without adding many salespeople. We went public via a SPAC, of all things.

STACI SATTERWHITE:
Ahh!

MICHAEL KATZ:

And then Yahoo bought us. So it was like, it was a wild ride. I wouldn't recommend going that route to anybody. But I'll stop there for a second before we get into that.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

So tell us a little bit about how that actually translated to mParticle. And then maybe even more specifically about since you've seen startup, you've seen scale, you've seen everything in between it sounds like, you experienced a lot of options, it sounds like you've got some passion, obviously, around data. Tell me a little bit about mParticle and how you see data helping organizations prioritize sustainable growth.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah. So I think what you mean is that I'm old and I’ve made a ton of mistakes.

SPIKE JONES:

No, never. Never.

MICHAEL KATZ:

I'm not. I'm not, I'm not quite sure, but that's how I interpret it.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

We could play the age game. I could probably outrank you in both old and mistakes. I too was a dotcom millionaire and yet here I am on this podcast with you.

MICHAEL KATZ:

I love it. Well, we'll trade horror stories at some point, but we'll spare the listeners.

The thesis behind mParticle was a number of higher-level trends converging. It was the continued shift to the cloud. It was the move to mobility and really mobile being the centerpiece of the customer experience. And that was, that was a non-obvious bet at the time, because there was this dialogue back in 2012, where it was like who's going to win? Is it gonna be app, or is it going to be web? But it wasn't like, there's a place for both and you know, even Facebook went all in on HTML5 at the time, and then they had double back and then they built natively and it was this kind of really interesting, counterintuitive bet, but we just felt like the whole like one has to win for one to lose or one has to lose for one to win was probably going to be overdone and there was going to be a world for both and somehow it would work out.

And then the last part was just a generational shift in terms of data literacy, right? So it went from this like, you know, mystical thing where only like two guys in the back of the office who nobody understood what they what they did were focused on. So like everybody's gonna have to become more data-centric and like decisions will ultimately be made in a far more deterministic way.

And so, we felt like, if those things happen, and we solved the problems around mobile data collection first, it would serve as a beachhead for us to be able to then create a center of mass for organizations where mobile was an increasingly important part of the customer experience, and then we could start to unify data from more channels.

And so mobile was always like the tip of the spear. It was never the end game. And while everybody else, tag managers and data management platforms, and anybody else that was like orbiting around this opportunity, were still focused on web, we really carved out our own opportunity as this next generation data layer that wasn't tethered to pixels and cookies and tactics of the web because we felt like those things were, were going to eventually give way to more more durable, structurally sound like API-connected experiences.

SPIKE JONES:

So you've talked about, I mean, the whole concept that you're talking about too, is kind of putting a lens and an organization around data. So this idea, or not this idea, but data complexity, like it's out there, right? It's a real thing. And we know that with great customer experience comes great responsibility. I just had to say it, I had to say, no.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Thank you, Uncle Ben.

SPIKE JONES:

With great CX, you know, it involves a lot of data. And so you talked about something that you call data chaos. Could you talk a little bit about what that is and why it's such a big problem out there for organizations?

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a universal phenomenon. We live in a world where the digital ecosystem is continually changing. Vast, right. So more data sources, including like, new consumer platforms are being created, which has not only increased the shape but also the size of data sets. So we have these devices that are always on, ultimately, so they're continuously generating data and also new types of data. So more data being created, more data being consumed, and then new privacy regulation. All the changes that are thrust upon everybody from Apple and Google around like what you can and cannot do with certain identifiers. IDFA, cookies going away, not going away. And then that creates a massive amount of change internally within organizations around now what they can do with data, what they can do with their campaigns and their dashboards and how they think about experimentation, and those things are kind of constantly in flux. So everything is moving. And all it takes is one change to create this like massive ripple effect.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

One of the things I was thinking about when you were talking is more is not always more, especially when you don't know what to do with it, right? And so maybe in that vein, brands need to find a way today to streamline data across all the customer touchpoints, and like you said, it's vast, it's complicated, it's ever changing. But I think helping brands streamline that data across all consumer touchpoints is something that mParticle does well. I would love to hear about some of your strategies for how you accomplish that.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah. Well, let's start with the end result. I think every company is either trying to grow their business, to run it more efficiently, or to transform it in some way, shape, or form. Data, customer data more specifically, is really quite high-leverage, right? Because it allows you to create predictability in the results that you're attempting to seek.

And so what does that ultimately mean? How does that start? It really starts with data design, and how does data design start? It's the synthesis of all of the demands from the consumers of data who are mapping what they are trying to do in service of those business goals, all of the constraints, restrictions, or other considerations that the data providers or the data producers have. And everybody has to come together and say what do we want to accomplish?

And so we, like to go back to the question, we don't want people to embrace data hoarding. We want people to be really mindful and collect as little data as possible to drive the most amount of impact and it's going to be far more cost effective. And it's going to create, again, like the most bang for the buck. And so it really starts there and it's in the data design process, which I think is underpinned by just better communication and collaboration across a series of functions from engineering, to analytics, to marketing, to customer support, ultimately.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

You know, what's resonating with me as you say that, one of my soapboxes is nobody buys software for software’s sake. They buy it to achieve value and outcomes for their business. And what's resonating with me is you're like, okay, take that same concept and apply it to data. You need to establish the outcome or the goal or the end game, and then back into the data you want, how you collect it, where you collect it, what you do with it, am I understanding what you're saying?

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, that is absolutely right. I mean, people will talk about treating data as a product and that's kind of buzzy, but that's like that's what it's all about. It's being mindful about how that ends up mapping, both directly and indirectly, to business outcomes. Because without that, you just have like a bunch of these like 26-year-old like hipster sequel engineers running around, like talking about features and speeds and feeds and it's all like, it's all nonsense.

SPIKE JONES:

So the name of the podcast is CX Confessions. So, Michael, I would love to know a time where you learned a hard lesson, or learned a lesson the hard way, through your journey in your career.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, I think the start of mParticle, if I look at the experience that we had at interclick, we had like about a six or seven year run, and every single quarter was up and to the right. So like —

STACI SATTERWHITE:
Hmm, that’s fun.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, it was fun, but like we were never really tested. We were in like, it was a different space at a different time, and like all that kind of stuff, and like don't get me wrong, we did, there was a bunch of hard work and we did a lot of things right. But we never fell on hard times. At mParticle, it was like, we thought we were going to get V1 of the product out into market in 18 months. And it ended up taking more like 21, 22 months, which doesn't seem like, you know, eight years in, nine years and it doesn't seem like a big deal. But like, three or four months where you also only have like four or five more months of runway and you've just sunk the past, you know, almost two years of your life into this thing, those are like, those are scary times and a bunch of sleepless nights.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yeah. Speaking of that, of being tested as a team and the things that are on your shoulders as a CEO and as a co-founder even more specifically, what advice do you have to our listeners that are aspiring founders of companies that are maybe feeling a little bit overwhelmed with with just getting it off the ground and maybe you can tie that into a little bit of, yeah, there, it might not always be up and to the right and certainly not in the early days, I suspect.

MICHAEL KATZ:

It's probably not going to always be up and to the right. Very, very few entrepreneurial journeys are ever just completely up and to the right and I think one of the depictions that I really identify with this is the messy middle. And I don't know if you've ever seen it. It was, I think, originally coined by Scott Belsky who is now the Chief Product Officer at Adobe, but it shows like yeah, there can be this like straight line up and to the right but then there's like there's dips and there's like a whole bunch of like ebbs and flows and over time, eventually you kind of like break free from that but as the company is growing you will encounter naturally new problems. And unless you've seen it all before, it can become really scary. And I think this is part of the reason why you see a lot of SAS founders go back and keep doing it because a lot of it you can pattern match.

SPIKE JONES:

MK, appreciate you with that sage advice. As I mentioned, before we started recording, we want to get to know you as a person, as an individual out there in the world. So we've got what we call CX Confessions Quickfire. So we're going to pepper you with five questions, just to get to know you a little bit better and I will kick it off with my favorite question.

What was your first concert my friend?

MICHAEL KATZ:

Ho ho ho this is going to be a super impressive one. It was Young M.C. and Milli Vanilli. Yeah. Don't, don't be jealous.

SPIKE JONES:

Yes. Oh, Hall of Fame stuff.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah totally.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Oh my goodness, wow, we could keep going on that one quite a bit, but we're gonna move on to rapid fire. What profession other than your own would you attempt if you could? What would you like to be good at, or what would you like to try to be good at?

MICHAEL KATZ:

I'd be like, a, I think an animal rescuer.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Wow, pulling on the heartstrings on that one.

MICHAEL KATZ:

You know, it's something I'm passionate about and —

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Large breed, small breed?

MICHAEL KATZ:

Whatever. Just helping those that don't have a voice, ultimately.

SPIKE JONES:

You'd be well received in Austin, Texas. Well received, for sure.

So you live in New York and you’re currently coming to us from London. But if you could move, or you had to move, somewhere other than where you're currently living, where would it be?

MICHAEL KATZ:

LA.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Ooh.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Love LA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love the weather. Got a bunch of friends there, great restaurants, beach, LA tech. I'm a huge fan of the LA tech scene. So yeah, I'd be in LA in a second.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Cool. Okay, moving on. Again, I could go deep on that question too. There's so much opportunity.

Getting to know you more, what is your biggest indulgence?

MICHAEL KATZ:

I like, these days, I'm pretty boring. I have a six year old son who I love spending time with and but like if I don't get to work out regularly, I become kind of cranky and agitated. So I'd say that's probably the biggest indulgence. Like I need that hour of alone time in the gym.

SPIKE JONES:

Yep, same. My partner, she will tell me, you need to go work out. Get out of here.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Go work out.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

My husband, the same. He's like, how many days has it been since you've done yoga? Okay, I can tell. Would you go, please?

SPIKE JONES:

And then one of my other favorites. What was your first job? So like your first job like maybe in high school just earning a couple bucks, but then like your first job out of college?

MICHAEL KATZ:

I worked at a local fruit stand. Like stocking fruit on the shelves.

SPIKE JONES:

Fair. Fair.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Love it. Love it. I stocked inventory at a drugstore. So there you go.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah, yeah. Couple of stockers.

SPIKE JONES:

Good times.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

This has turned into the “couple of stockers” show.

MICHAEL KATZ:

Yeah.

SPIKE JONES:

Well, Michael, thanks again so much for spending some time with us. Thank you for the sage advice. Thank you for sharing your journey. Thank you for letting us look a little bit into who you are as a person. Really appreciate you being here.

We'd love to talk to you and catch up with you at some point again, but again, thanks for being here. I know our listeners appreciate it.

MICHAEL KATZ:

All day man, yeah, thanks for having me.

STACI SATTERWHITE:
Loved it. Thank you, Michael.

SPIKE JONES:

Staci, that was great. Man, Michael knows some things. Some things. Like lots and lots of things. Is there anything in particular that stood out for you?

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Yeah, there were a couple few things, again, going into the episode I thought he was going to be about outcomes and using data to achieve outcomes. Again, I love that concept. It's so near and dear to my heart. So that was cool. And I love that he supported that and focused all around that. Some other things that he said that just resonated with me that I think you know, I’ll even take into my both personal and professional lives a couple of things. He talked about being anti-fragile, which I can imagine as being a founder, you got to just be anti-fragile, right? Can you imagine how hard it is to start something from nothing?

SPIKE JONES:

It’s your baby. Yeah.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

And then he also talked about this phrase that I've heard before. In fact, I think you may be the one who knows where it came from. And that is when you're going through hell, just keep going.

SPIKE JONES:

Mr. Winston Churchill, I believe, I presume, but yes, always a great concept because there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows, right?

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Exactly. Such a good thing. Such a good thing. Of course, he even talked about sleepless nights, which we've all had. It's good to know that the path is not always up and to the right and, and we need to remember that it's not a linear path. It's not a nice curve, right? Like, stuff gets thrown at you and you deal with it, especially if you're a founder of a company.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely. And I love, he also talks about a counterintuitive bet that they made too and I love that and appreciate that because especially in industries like ours, it is so easy to go with the flow and copy what other people are doing and not really think for yourself. I talk to my team about thought leadership, and thought leadership, you have to have a point that people can argue for and against and that is the true, for me, that's the true meaning of thought leadership. Thought leadership isn’t going like oh, here's what everyone is thinking, and so I'm just going to put it out there. It's, maybe this is counterintuitive to how you think about this business, but maybe we can build on it because I think that's where great ideas come from.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

That's such a good point. I love the concept of thought leadership being something to discuss, not just accept, that's nice.

And speaking of not just accepting and discussing, he talks about making big bets and I love that he was authentic in everything he said but also authentic in like you know anybody who thinks that they make a big bet and then they're gonna get it right, you can't have all that data, but at some point, you need to either make the big bet or try to play both sides. I love that he was authentic and genuine about his journey on that path.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely. I'll definitely be listening to this one a few times for sure to pick up more of those nuggets.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

Spike, I believe, can I say it out loud? This is the last time I get to do this with you.

SPIKE JONES:

Say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

I'm heartbroken.

SPIKE JONES:

Well, you know, it's been a fun ride and I've really appreciated our great guests. And I know there'll be many, many more just like Michael today.

So my friends, thanks for tuning in to CX Confessions. Once again, my name is Spike Jones.

STACI SATTERWHITE:

And I'm Staci Satterwhite,

SPIKE JONES:

We'll see you next time.

KHOROS:

Now more than ever, your customers expect to be understood on a personal level. Their likes or dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of interaction across their own teams and channels, which can lead to customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. The award-winning customer engagement platform was built to turn those siloed interactions with your customers into enterprise value.

Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands powering more than 500 million digital interactions every single day. Learn more at @khoros.com.

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