Dr. Jeremy Weisz 13:46
How do you educate the school system to actually look at the stuff or gain access? Like how do they like if 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 14:11
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 managed analytic services is not only plugging in the platform that’s combining these, you know, 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 be 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, you know, 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 doctor’s 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?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:32
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 15:44
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 tableaus existing platform that is available through the browser to be able to log in. What’s great about those platforms is that, you know, for many organizations that have you know, 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 or reporting experiences. And so imagine you could go to portal.go, data drive.com, which is a 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 then make 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 FET the fastest way we can deliver insights directly to them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 16:47
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 it’s not you must have to pull data from like, all these random, fragmented sources. Yeah, maybe test scores over here, then maybe this? I don’t know, what does it look like in the onboarding process to create this type of solution?
Luke Komiskey 17:14
Yeah, for you know, any, any organization we bring on? And you know, school districts have the same? It’s, it’s building out an inventory of what, 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 the, you know, for most companies, that isn’t just one source that rules them all. And that’s, 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 in 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, in 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 that isn’t easy. And that’s where we come in to make that seamless.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 18:41
Talk about you as a company. Usually, what when people start off with a company, it’s not 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 19:03
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 cut and how we can help. We would serve them. And really over the course of like the first half of data drives life it continued to be that of what
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 19:30
type of companies were coming you were finding were attracted to what you’re doing. Yeah,
Luke Komiskey 19:35
it was 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 was you know, taking advantage of tools like Tableau to be able to, you know, 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 we were building a lot of fantastic data products. But every every piece of that required me or my team to have to, like build up just a higher high level and direct customers to have what have you know, 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 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, it 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, I, when I started data drive, 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 streamlined for us to know exactly what applications to ask for, and go after and deliver that in record time. And I think it’s 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.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 21:55
That’s, that’s great. You know, I want to talk about the evolution of the services themselves to you said you started off with some services, and then talk about, you know, how it evolved to now.
Luke Komiskey 22:11
Yeah, so when I, when I first started, I came from a consulting background. And really like all I knew from my former consulting consulting background is that we would go to really large companies, often responding to RFPs. And put together like fixed fixed scope engagements, or even just like hourly consulting, consulting engagements. And so if you think about some of our bigger companies we worked with, they would, 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 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 data drive. And, you know, part of the evolution of those services is is recognizing that like one to scale, that type of operation requires more people going into more offices all the time. And from the operations side of it, it means that you’ve got more people that need to be sold on more projects at more companies. And so that, for me, it was like that, that scaling part of it, you know, really tough and then you throw in a global pandemic that we can talk about like that completely flips the formula, going into the office, and like what our expectations on like, how work is delivered.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 23:35
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 23:41
Yeah, and like when I started the consultancy, like my, 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 in 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 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.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 24:50
You 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 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 25:11
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 what’s great for top talent to be interested throughout the lifespan of data drive 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 you know, 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 with technology become an expert in the technology to be able to drive that type of growth. And I think also, like pre 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, huge value add of Hyatt was able to get really talented people that want to do interesting work, but didn’t want to be away from their family.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 26:26
Did that help? I mean, so pre COVID expectation for these companies like we want to, we want FaceTime. So the expectations shifted a lot after COVID that has that come back at all? Or how’s that? I think back that.
Luke Komiskey 26:41
I think people in general are are hungry for in person interactions. I think I mean, the 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 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, you know, I, 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 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, 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 the 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.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 27:56
Talk about remote culture for a second, and what do you do to maintain a remote culture?
Luke Komiskey 28:04
Yeah, the the biggest thing that I found is, I It’s first of all, finding, 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 workstyle, 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, you know, 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 net 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. And I think that can be a big shift, especially for consultancies and agencies that are like, you know, 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 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.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 29:49
I want to go to look, I mentioned the very beginning about you know, there was a point where you just travel the world. You went to 28 countries, I think you and your wife quit your job, sold everything and traveled. What were some of the learnings that you 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 30:13
So, the big thing for me in my life just in general is like I want to have, I want to live a great story. And for me, I kind of view my story as there’s 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 you know, not have a bunch of, you know, special setups to make that happen. And so I, my wife, and I very much took that to heart, we now have two kids. But this 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 stayed would be just 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, alright, 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 risk. And actually, you know, 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 tell 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 for doing that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 32:27
What were some of the memorable moments along the trip that you still think back on and learn from?
Luke Komiskey 32:35
Now the two that come to mind is one I loved Absolutely. Like our favorite country was New Zealand. My, 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 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 if I found happiness by like being instant cook 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 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. 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 you know what it means to live a fulfilling life. And often that doesn’t happen just by working really hard.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 34:22
At what point you said you bought the one way ticket. And at what point do you decide okay, this thing this trip is coming to an end here.
Luke Komiskey 34:30
So I’m a numbers guy. I know you’d be surprised by this, but very surprised.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 34:36
Yeah, you like I have this whole tab. I had this whole dashboard built.
Luke Komiskey 34:42
I mean I did and so we like had our downpayment 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 try 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 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 to that point.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 35:40
Oh, talk about learnings in the relationship. Right? You’re with your wife. You’re in a car vehicle for two weeks. In a closed space, what were some of the learnings relationship wise.
Luke Komiskey 35:56
It was 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 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, I just I it was it was amazing for our marriage, just being able to, like I guess just experience life with and we were relatively like new 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 I loved everything about that. And it truly did strengthen the relationship because I mean, you have no choice there, your 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 and do your own thing and not get down to the core core things you need to be talking about.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 37:13
Yeah, look, thanks for sharing that. I have. I have one last question. Before I ask it, I want to just point people to check out go data drive.com to learn more. They have some great resources there that you can check out. But look, my last question is just mentors. That could be books that could be actual people. Who are some of the mentors have influenced your, your business journey?
Luke Komiskey 37:43
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 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 kind of given me new ideas to think about these mentors have been specifically for like my forum. And so within yo 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, 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 this time together. Another one that stands out to me is just in particular is i Our old managing director from my consulting company right before I started data drive. Really, like had no reason because for as far as you 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 no, there’s no gain for him outside of just helping me and so I think 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, you know, once you make it to the top like gotta send the elevator back down. And yeah, I think he’s he’s just been a really good mentor and 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.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 39:44
What do you think, motivated him to help? Like you said, there’s no, you know, there’s no gain on his part, necessarily, but like, besides just the good deed of helping.
Luke Komiskey 40:00
Yeah, I kind of view it like he was a just, he had found so much success in consulting he was 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 you know, 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 I think for him, it’s just like you 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 you know, 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 you know, 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 that’s it’s a really cool feeling.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 41:05
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 41:18
Yeah, the the latest one, and I’m probably gonna butcher the title, but we’ll see if we get it right. The Gap and The Gain.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 41:24
Sure. Benjamin Hardy.
Luke Komiskey 41:30
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 is you think about all the things that you didn’t think about the first time like the gap of what 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 Entrepreneurial Operating System. Traction is kind of their 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 you know, Luke, Luke creating a job out of being a freelancer.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 42:31
Yeah, and check on my 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, Rocket Fuel. That’s also a really good interview and good book as well. You ever read that?
Luke Komiskey 42:46
Yeah, that’s the orange book. Right?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 42:48
Right. So check those out. You know, 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 43:03
Thank you.
Outro 43:04
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