Let’s Meander The Modern Data Landscape, Together 🤝

Thanks for stopping by!

Firstly, here’s wishing you a very happy new year! No matter where you are in your data journey, I hope you get answers to all your data questions and that 2022 turns out to be a breakout year for you.

Since many of you are hearing from me for the very first time, I want to provide some context about this newsletter — how it started and what to expect from future issues — as well as share some news about Data-led Academy (DLA) and astorik.

TLDR: DLA has been acquired, the astorik community is here, and this newsletter will be home to a mix of educational and (highly) opinionated content about the modern data landscape. 

How this newsletter started

I launched the first iteration of this newsletter in March 2021 as an extension of DLA to share what I was discovering and learning about the data space. However, one dozen issues later, I hit pause as DLA had evolved into astorik and I wanted to spend some time figuring out the audience I was building for.

DLA was created with product and growth professionals in mind (typically non-data people).

astorik, on the other hand, aims to cater to a broader audience by enabling pretty much anyone to quickly understand the proposition of a data tool — the problem it solves, its core features and benefits, who it caters to, and which layer of the data stack or category it belongs to. 

Between DLA and astorik though, one thing is constant — my desire to demystify the data landscape for everybody and to bridge the gap between data people and non-data people.   

Amplitude is taking DLA’s mission forward

Data-led Academy started as a side project where I published a series of guides about customer data infrastructure (CDI). While I experimented with other content formats, the guides have been the cornerstone of DLA and have been consumed by tens of thousands of people over the last 18 months.

DLA had the potential to keep growing, but I decided to double down on astorik and find a partner that could take DLA to the next level. 

And today, I couldn’t be happier to share that DLA is joining Amplitude!

The guides will gradually be updated and moved over, and while DLA will cease to exist, I’ll continue working with Amplitude to create a bunch of new content. If you’re curious to know more, here’s the full announcement on the Amplitude blog.

The astorik Data Community Network is live

After talking to over two hundred data practitioners and founders, and spending hundreds of hours across communities answering questions and consuming knowledge in the form of answers, I’ve come to a conclusion:

An open repository of knowledge in the form of answers to common data questions can be of immense value and has the potential to bridge the widening gap between data people and non-data people. 

The astorik network aims to fulfill this need where anyone can get answers to their data questions, experts can share their knowledge and build their own communities, and eventually (hopefully), people will be able to search and find answers to common data questions without even asking.

It’s not another Slack community but a community of communities.  

If you have questions or would like to exhibit your expertise by answering questions, join the astorik community as a founding member.

Where this newsletter is going

As I continue to spend my days meandering the modern data landscape — learning and writing about new data tools and technologies, tracking the progress of data companies, and digesting hot takes shared by data leaders — I’ve formed some strong opinions that I’d like to share and discuss via this Substack.

Expect original articles and guides based on my understanding and analysis of the data space. I also intend to share astorik updates that I think are useful for this audience; for regular updates though, join the astorik community.

Lastly, talking about this newsletter’s audience, anyone who works in tech or is curious to learn about the data landscape should find this content helpful. So if you know someone like that and decide to share the newsletter with them, I shall be grateful. 🙏