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From Riding Unagi to Powering Unagi: How Sigma Became Their Secret Weapon

By Sofia Bogunovic
Content Marketing Manager
From Riding Unagi to Powering Unagi: How Sigma Became Their Secret Weapon

A data-driven ride into the future

For Unagi Scooters, mobility isn’t just about getting from point A to point B—it’s about reimagining how people move through the world. Unagi has always relied on data to optimize user experience, refine operations, and grow its business. But their journey to becoming a truly data-powered organization accelerated when they transitioned from Tableau to Sigma. What started with Sigma as a customer, zipping around on Unagi scooters, quickly evolved into a full-throttle data partnership—one that’s now helping Unagi unlock new levels of efficiency and intelligence.

The way it interacted with the rest of our stack—especially on the data side of it with Snowflake—was more efficient.
— Jonathan Rosenbaum, CFO, Unagi

Life before Sigma: A solid system with untapped potential

Before discovering Sigma, Unagi was deeply embedded in Tableau. The company had built out tools within the Tableau environment and integrated them across its technology stack, ensuring a stable, functional business intelligence setup. “We were pretty baked into Tableau,” recalls Jonathan Rosenbaum, CFO of Unagi.

However, as Unagi grew, they needed more flexibility in how they analyzed their data. “We were constantly looking at our subscriber base from multiple angles—by geography, demographics, time of day, seasonality—all of which played a crucial role in understanding performance,” Rosenbaum explains. “It wasn’t that Tableau didn’t have the functionality—we just found it too difficult to efficiently pivot across multiple dimensions the way we wanted to,” he adds.

Why they chose Sigma: A natural evolution

One day, someone from Sigma’s operations team reached out and made a simple pitch: “We love your scooters—have you thought about trying our BI tool?”

At first, Unagi was hesitant. “We’re a small team. We didn’t have the bandwidth to overhaul our analytics stack,” Rosenbaum explains. But the Sigma team encouraged them to take a look—not as a hard sell, but as a genuine opportunity to explore a different approach to working with data.

It’s our system of record.
— Jonathan Rosenbaum
, CFO, Unagi

The results spoke for themselves. “What ended up happening was, it was significantly better than Tableau,” he says. “Firstly, it was just easier to use. Secondly, the way it interacted with the rest of our stack—especially on the actual data side of it with Snowflake—was more efficient.”

Sigma’s efficiency directly translated into cost savings. “We ended up paying less to other providers just to touch our data because of how Sigma optimizes those interactions,” Rosenbaum notes. Sigma’s ability to manipulate data within queries and dashboards gave Unagi the flexibility to work with their data in a spreadsheet-like manner, which better aligned with their existing architecture. “That was a game-changer for us,” he adds.

Life with Sigma: Powering a data-driven future

Sigma isn’t just a tool for Unagi—it’s the backbone of their business intelligence. “We use it all the time. It’s our system of record for a lot of aspects of our business,” Rosenbaum explains. “There are a slew of tools we’ve built—dashboarding tools and reporting tools—that are used by everybody in the organization essentially every single day.”

Sigma in finance: A clearer view of the bottom line

Unagi’s subscription model means that financial planning isn’t just about one-time purchases—it’s about understanding subscriber behavior over time. “Our business is driven by two key elements: our subscription model and scooter sales. And we need to deeply understand the movement of our subscriber base—who’s signing up, who’s churning, who’s delinquent, and who’s at risk,” explains Rosenbaum.

Sigma allows Unagi to track every one of these variables in real time, providing clear insights into revenue streams and customer lifecycles. “Revenue may come from platforms like Stripe and Shopify, but it gets manipulated inside Sigma,” Rosenbaum says. “That’s what ultimately drives our financial reporting and decision-making.”

Unagi’s finance team can now slice and dice data across multiple dimensions—geography, demographics, seasonality—giving them a precise view of what’s working and where they need to adjust.

Sigma in operations: Powering smarter, more efficient decisions

Sigma plays a crucial role in Unagi’s day-to-day operations. Whether it’s optimizing inventory, improving marketing efficiency, or predicting customer retention, the Unagi team relies on Sigma to guide their decisions.

“If our marketing team wants to understand advertising efficiency—return on ad spend, new sign-ups, retention—they pull that data from Sigma,” Rosenbaum notes. What’s more, Sigma’s ability to integrate with Unagi’s existing tools means that everything from customer service interventions to churn predictions is now data-driven. “Every time we need to intervene with a customer—whether they’re at risk of churning or moving into delinquency—Sigma helps us spot the trend early,” says Rosenbaum.

The road ahead: Growing with Sigma

Looking to the future, Unagi’s focus is simple: sign up more subscribers efficiently and retain them for longer. “The more intelligent we get about the types of people who are most likely to stay, and the kinds of offers that drive sign-ups, the better we’ll perform.”

To achieve that, Unagi is doubling down on its data strategy, leveraging machine learning, AI, and deeper analytics—all powered by Sigma. “We’ve already implemented AI into our customer service and internal processes, and we’re now using data models to evaluate subscriber quality,” Rosenbaum explains. “The more we refine that, the better we can optimize our acquisition and retention strategies.”

A smarter, faster, more agile future

For Unagi Scooters, the switch to Sigma wasn’t just about finding a better BI platform—it was about unlocking the full potential of their data. By replacing Tableau with Sigma, they’ve not only improved efficiency and cut costs but also gained a powerful, intuitive platform that helps them make smarter decisions every day.

“Everything that gets me excited about using data boils down to two questions: how do we find the right people, and how do we deliver the right message?” says Rosenbaum. “Sigma is helping us answer those questions better than ever before.”

Read more stories from Sigma’s customers or download a trial here.

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