Most analytics projects don’t fail because of ambition—they fail because the foundation is brittle.
You’ve seen the symptoms:
- Definitions drift (“who owns ‘active user’?”)
- Reporting becomes manual
- Dashboards don’t match between tools
- Nobody trusts the numbers enough to act fast
The 90‑day plan (simple and realistic)
Days 1–14: Connect and land data
Land the core sources starting with product and operational data from MySQL. Add web analytics events from GA4 Export to understand user behavior. Connect paid acquisition data from Microsoft Advertising to track marketing spend. Finally, deploy a warehouse layer in Snowflake to unify all data sources.
Days 15–45: Define the KPI layer
Create a small set of definitions everyone shares, starting with activation metrics that define when a user becomes valuable. Define retention metrics that measure customer stickiness. Establish CAC and ROI calculations that everyone uses consistently. Finally, define pipeline or revenue outcome metrics depending on your business model.
Days 46–90: Ship the dashboards people use
Publish dashboards starting with acquisition ROI that tracks spend through conversion, activation, and final outcomes. Add funnel and cohort retention analysis to understand customer lifecycle. Finally, create a weekly executive snapshot with variance drivers that explains what changed and why.
Why DIY foundations take longer than expected
DIY warehouse projects usually stall on the “boring, critical” parts:
- Incremental loads and backfills
- Schema change management
- Observability (detecting missing/partial loads)
- Documentation and ownership continuity
Our managed data platform is built to make those reliable so you can move fast without constantly fixing plumbing.