E85 - Benn Stancil - From Building a Tool to Building a Software Company

Meet Benn Stancil


It's no secret that running a startup is not for the faint of
heart. From fundraising, managing teams, collecting data, and
more, it's all part of the painful but electrifying process.


Anyone who has done it before will tell you about the fine line
they had to walk between success and failure.


We read it on the news all the time, but today, I will take you
behind the scenes and have Benn share with you some exclusive,
insider stories.


Even better, his startup develops data analytics software, the
very bread and butter of what we do day in and day out at our own
organisations, but with an extra touch of sweet jam as Benn
focuses on collaborative analytics.
Benn’s Role as a Data Analytics Leader at Mode

Benn Stancil is the Chief Analytics Officer and Co-Founder of
Mode. Mode was established in 2013 when Benn and his co-founders
recognized the need for a collaborative analytics platform for
those who worked on the frontier of data analysis. Mode
streamlines analyst workflows with a self-serve experience for
business users, making it easy to share actionable data insights
and stories across entire organizations.


At Mode, Benn not only runs the data team, but played an integral
role in the company’s building process, including fundraising and
managing the executive team, all while using analytics at every
possible step of the way.
Benn’s Other Experiences in Data Analytics

Prior to Mode, Benn was an analyst at Microsoft and Yammer, where
he helped lead product analytics. Currently, Benn is investing a
lot of his time in writing about the data industry and where it’s
headed on his Substack. So far, he has written articles on social
media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Clubhouse, startup
wealth tax, self-serve, modern data stacks, and more.
Building a software company

In this exclusive analytics podcast episode, Benn shares:


The power of writing and why everyone should start doing it

His tips for writing

His corporate career at Yammer and Microsoft

The internal tool he built at Yammer

How it serves his business stakeholders

How and why Benn and his colleagues started their software
company

Stories, challenges, and tips from his journey building up
the company



If you’re a data scientist or data engineer with an interest in
what it would take to build a company out of your products and
solutions, this is the episode you do not want to miss out on.