Gimme Dashboards

The ‘skilled’ positions make all the money in Football.

They are paid because they can :

1. Find a whole, seam, open receiver

2. Get to it and through it the fastest

The best entrepreneurs recognize holes in an industry and than build a business as they run through them. You can’t use a complete football analogy because a football player gets to the endzone and the play is over. The great entrepreneurs must build walls, barriers etc..as they run through holes in order to keep the slice of business protected. The play is NEVER over.

These days, I am driven to have the best dashboards to run Stocktwits. I want to have to look at the fewest pieces of paper that get me and my Board snapshot updated on the business. If we do that, we can focus on moving forward and cleaning up mistakes…faster.

Most important to me are :

1. Analytics Dashboard. I want to see where, when, who, how and why people are using the sites and interacting. If we set up the dashboard properly, we can spot trends, problems, and opportunities for customers.

2. Financial Dashboard. I need to see where we are financially, where we will be the next 3 months and what the next 12 months looks like. I need to be able to make decisions in real time financially but I must have the analytics to make good decisions.

3. Product Roadmap. I need to see clearly how all our projects, features, apps, etc….are timelined and moving along …preferrable in real time so that we can make adjustments at weekly meetings and always prioritize based on our customers, analytics and financials. Having the roadmap also helps you fit in new ideas which ALWAYS surface.

4. Customer Dashboard. A lot of this is in the Analytics, but I also want to see all of our current leads, contact information and progress.

5. Organization Dashboard – An organization chart and a detailed job description for the poeple of the company so that they can succeed.

Not everyone in the Company needs access to all the dashboards but if you want to go fast and/or speed is of the essence for building the business, than take the time at some point in the first year of business to nail these dashboards.

I believe that the earlier, the better, so the more tools you have the better. I found this great post yesterday on ‘Mapping out your web Startup ‘ . I think this is the first Dashboard any web startup should look at. Great companies are built off clear vision and great division of duties. Having clear roadmaps and dashboards will help you go fast.

I would love some feedback on what YOU are doing or what other charts, roadmaps, dashboards I should be looking at.