French Startup Captain Dash Develops Agile Data Visualisation Dashboard

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We spoke to Bertrand Verret, Chief Revenue Officer at Captain Dash, about the hype of big data, the needs of marketing directors, and the key to success.

How would you describe Captain Dash in a few words?

We make dashboards and data walls that users love to use because they are simple, beautiful and aligned with their missions.

French Startup Captain Dash Develops Agile Data Visualisation Dashboard

Bertrand Verret, Chief Revenue Officer at Captain Dash

What inspired you to create the dashboard? How did it all start?

6 years a go we realized that a marketing director is receiving 30 to 50 reports per month in different forms and shapes but mostly in excel, pdf, and power point. Data is siloed from differents internal systems such as ERP, analytics, social media, and market research data.

When you look at your personal life we have access to beautiful, simple tools with superior UX. Think of Nike+, for instance, you have access to a beautiful dashboard in the palm of your hands that helps you to monitor performance and positively stimulate action in light of improving your performances. We thought why we don’t have Nike+ for operational management to improve operational excellence? So, we realized it.

Are you using Captain Dash internally? How does that affect the viewpoints of the development team?

We use it for sales and marketing, e.g. lead generation and overall sales performance reporting. Our development team also receives ongoing feedback from users and implements it to new versions. This combined feedback loops help us stay on track and improve our dashboard even further.

Reporting per se is not a new business, with a vast number of companies active in the field: What makes Captain Dash stand out of the crowd? What is the key differentiator?

We have three:

  1. Usage and User Experience drive the data storytelling and design of our dashboard
  2. simplicity and
  3. our dashboard comes with content, e.g. an agile framework and KPI selection

Your startup focuses agile data – why do you think that is important and in what ways does it benefit businesses?

We believe that beyond the hype of Augmented Reality, the Internet of Things and big data there is a strong business case for large organizations to reinvent operational management and drive transformation with simple reporting stimulating collective intelligence. Agile Data Visualisation helps to surface data and KPIs quickly.

What’s the most considerable pivoting maneuver that the team has undertaken throughout the journey so far?

We started with social media and digital data and realized that if we wanted our dashboards to stay within our client’s organization we have to add ERP’s financial and sales data. We had to find a way to retrieve a client’s legacy data without being intrusive to their IT systems, thanks to micro services architecture.

What is the biggest challenge that the company has faced?

We faced several challenges but I would say that the biggest was to find a way to not listen to the technology big data hype and stick to the initial vision we had for Captain Dash.

What is the most memorable moment throughout the history of Captain Dash?

I would say that when we welcomed our real first client with international deployment, it was L’Oréal.

If there is one thing you could wish for in improving the European startup ecosystem – what would it be?

Easy: the simplification of administrative tasks and labor law – at least in France. But I think many other European countries and startups would benefit from improving these factors as well.

What’s one piece of advice you can give to fellow founders for their startup?

Never doubt, believe in yourself – always.

 

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