Our Data Strategy Is Our Growth Strategy

Scaling a company isn’t just about selling more. It’s about making faster, smarter decisions—every day, in every part of the business. Not based on gut instinct. Not based on last month’s dashboard. But based on real-time data that reflects what’s happening right now.

That’s how we grew Sigma from a startup to $100 million in ARR. We didn’t chase metrics. We built a system where everyone—sales, finance, CS, execs—had the context and confidence to make the right call, fast. And we built that system on Sigma.

We built a system where everyone—sales, finance, CS, execs—had the context and confidence to make the right call, fast.

Data has always played a role at Sigma. Since the day I joined (and well before my time)—coming up on three years now—it’s been part of everything we do. Honestly, it’s hard to separate it from anything. It’s so baked into how we work that asking whether data helped us reach this milestone is like asking if breathing helped us run a marathon.

At Sigma, if you’re trying to tell a story, there better be a Sigma workbook to support it. Everyone builds them. Everyone uses them. And every conversation—whether it’s with an IC or the executive team—needs to be backed by some level of data. That’s not a rule we enforce. It’s just the way we operate. So when we say our data strategy was our growth strategy, that’s not marketing spin. That’s how we actually work.

The moment my philosophy changed

The shift for me happened when we started using Sigma not just to look at data, but to work alongside it. We were doing scenario planning, forecasting deal outcomes, modeling what-if paths that weren’t yet in the warehouse. And we were doing it all in Sigma.

That’s when it hit me: the warehouse isn't enough. There’s always more context—things in your head, conversations in Slack, nuance that doesn’t show up in rows and columns. With input tables and data apps, we could finally bring that into the flow of analysis. That was the pivotal moment for me. The old model—write some SQL, ship a report, walk away—didn’t make sense anymore. 

There’s always more context—things in your head, conversations in Slack, nuance that doesn’t show up in rows and columns.

Most prospects I have the opportunity to chat with every week still aren’t aware of the step function change this can create in an organization. With Sigma sitting directly on top of our cloud-native data warehouse, we’re able to focus on what has happened, what is happening, and what needs to happen in order for us to continue to hit our growth targets. When we layer in the ability to write back to our warehouse alongside our production data in real time, we’re no longer forcing our stakeholders to leverage static tools—we’re giving them the ability to enact change directly in the BI layer. Technology like this–input tables, writeback, and cloud-native architecture is  not just a better experience, it’s a strategic advantage.

I used to be a firm believer that everything had to be version-controlled, code-backed, highly structured. That was the only way I knew. But at Sigma, that changed. Suddenly the sales team could bring their own assumptions to the forecast. CS could model customer health right inside their workflows. Finance could look at headcount changes in real time. Executives could explore leading indicators without asking for a data pull.

When your whole company is working in Sigma, with live data and shared context, there’s no “single source of truth” problem. There’s just truth—and people equipped to act on it.

And instead of the usual Spiderman-pointing meme—data team blaming the business, business blaming the data—we were actually collaborating.

The truth is, data folks are incredibly sharp, curious people. We know a lot about the business. But we don’t know everything. We’re not going to think like a VP of Ops or a revenue leader. And we shouldn’t try to. They know things we don’t. And giving them the power to bring their perspective directly into the analysis? That’s been transformational.

That’s how we moved past BI dashboards. Past slide decks. Past the stale reports everyone argues over in meetings. When your whole company is working in Sigma, with live data and shared context, there’s no “single source of truth” problem. There’s just truth—and people equipped to act on it.

When we stop doing the work, the system is working

Territory planning is one of my favorite examples. I’ve done that the old way—just me and an Excel spreadsheet for eight hours, going back and forth with stakeholders over email. Then you finally send something out, and someone wants to test a new segment or shift an account, and the whole thing breaks. At Sigma, we do it differently. We’re scenario planning live. We’re all in the same workbook. We try something, we see how it plays out, and we move. It’s collaborative. It’s faster. And it feels like the right people are in the room—because they are.

That model extends to everything. The more we build Sigma into the way we work—not just the tool we use—the more we’re able to move quickly and confidently. And the less we, as a data team, have to be the bottleneck.

We’re scenario planning live. We’re all in the same workbook. We try something, we see how it plays out, and we move.

I joke with the team that our North Star is to never work. It’s half a joke—but only half. The idea is: if we’ve modeled the right things, and made the right assets available, people shouldn’t have to come to us for every little thing. Everyone at Sigma has a creator license. That’s intentional. People can ask their own questions and answer them right away. They don’t need to wait three days for a report. They just go.

And no, it hasn’t created sprawl. In fact, we’ve seen fewer workbooks being created—because people are working together, iterating, and building smarter. If you don’t give people the power to do this inside your stack, they’re going to export it to Excel and do it somewhere else. We’d rather meet them where they are and help them do it better.

The less work we’re doing, the better our system is working. That’s how I measure success.

We’re not here to be the report factory. We’re here to build a system that helps everyone think more clearly with data.

And that’s what scales—culture, empowerment, and great people.

So if you’re still measuring your data strategy by how many dashboards you ship—or how fast your team turns around a ticket—take a step back. Think bigger. Ask whether the people making decisions have what they need to move now, not tomorrow. Because that’s the difference between keeping up and pulling ahead.

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