Our work with Founders Forum Group
Outlier partnered with Founders Forum Group to implement a centralised data stack, consolidating multiple data sources, automating reporting and improving data accessibility.
The new infrastructure provides Founders Forum’s core team with a scalable foundation to support their global entrepreneurial community.
Overview
Founders Forum Group is a global community and group of businesses supporting innovative entrepreneurs at every stage of their journeys.
Founded in 2005, FF Group offers a suite of services including events, educational programmes, services, investment, and philanthropy for founders and innovators across various industries.
Situation
Founders Forum's events business had outgrown its data infrastructure.
The company aimed to expand their community, team and global event presence, however their existing data infrastructure was not equipped to support this next phase of growth. This challenge was particularly pressing as the team had expanded significantly, with more members requiring vital data access, and data volumes had more than doubled in the past two years.
While data was generally available, it wasn't structured to enable consistent data-driven decision making. Their Salesforce CRM was intended as the central source of truth, but in reality data was scattered across Salesforce, Pitchbook, Dealroom, Google Sheets, and various other platforms (and not all data sources integrated well with Salesforce).
Key challenges included:
Time-consuming and limited reporting: Weekly reporting took up some team members' entire Monday and part of Tuesday as well. Due to the manual nature of having to aggregate data from multiple sources, these reports were more basic than they could be, limiting their value and insights.
Inefficient ad hoc data pulls: Simple queries often took 30+ minutes and yielded unreliable results.
Inconsistent data quality: Outdated and incomplete CRM information hindered accurate decision-making. Crucial details were missing or outdated in Salesforce, resulting in team members spending valuable time manually verifying data quality.
Stifled innovation: Without the appropriate infrastructure, the team couldn't deliver on high value data-centric projects, leaving value on the table.
Working with Outlier over an 8 week period completely transformed our data infrastructure and has enabled our team to easily and efficiently access accurate and up-to-date data, supercharging our team’s productivity as we scale our global community and tap into new segments of our entrepreneurial network.
– Emily Miller, Group Marketing Director // Founders Forum Group
GOALS
Founders Forum Group recognised the need for a comprehensive overhaul of their data infrastructure and processes.
Through working with Outlier, the organisation aimed to address several key issues that were hindering their ability to leverage data effectively and make informed decisions. We worked with Founders Forum Group to establish the following objectives of the project:
Build a centralised data stack that enables efficient, automated reporting and insights
Consolidate data from various sources into a centralised data warehouse (BigQuery) to create a centralised source of truth
Implement Looker Studio to enable self-service data analysis and visualisation across the organisation
Set FF Group up for future innovation with a future proofed data stack
THE SOLUTION
DATA STRATEGY & ROADMAP
During the initial discovery phase, we collaborated with key stakeholders (Community, Content, Marketing, Data, and Leadership teams) to identify and prioritise use cases.
Beyond scoping our immediate work, we developed a longer term data strategy that FF Group could implement post-engagement.
DATA CONSOLIDATION & ETL
The first step in building out the data stack was to ensure data quality and reliability:
Airbyte to pull data from various sources (including Salesforce CRM, Google Sheets, Dealroom, and other sources) and pipe it into BigQuery.
Dataform to create a set of basic tables and data models that combined information from the various sources and would act as Founders Forum Group's centralised, unified source of truth. Collaborating closely with the FF team to ensure all business relevant buisiness logic was captured.
SELF-SERVICE BI WITH LOOKER STUDIO
We created a suite of dashboards in Looker Studio (that read from our core tables), focusing on recreating weekly reports that previously required manual effort.
These dashboards allowed the Community & Content teams to gain rapid insights into community growth, retention and event performance.
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND SUSTAINABILITY
We selected tools with intuitive UIs suitable for non-technical users. Clear documentation and training were provided, enabling FF Group team members to take ownership of these tools.
While the system is designed for self-sufficiency, Outlier remains available for support if fundamental changes occur, such as the introduction of new data sources.
IMPACT
The implementation of the new data stack yielded significant time savings and efficiency improvements for Founders Forum Group.
Time savings on weekly reports: Weekly community and speaker reports, previously consuming an entire day for 3-5 team members, are now generated automatically.
Faster ad-hoc data queries: Comparisons like year-over-year founder statistics once taking 45+ minutes, can now be pulled in seconds.
Improved data accessibility and completeness: By consolidating multiple data sources into a single, centralised platform, team members can now easily access comprehensive information. For example, Salesforce CRM data is now combined with Dealroom data and other private company data sources, providing a complete, 360-degree view of community members in one place.
These improvements have significantly enhanced Founders Forum Group's operations and decision-making processes. Automated reporting and consolidated data have drastically cut time spent on manual tasks while also improving data accuracy and consistency. As a result, team members can now make data-driven decisions with greater confidence and speed. This new infrastructure has positioned Founders Forum Group to tackle more sophisticated data projects, enabling them to better serve their community and drive future growth initiatives.
