Glitni | Summary of the First Half of 2023

We have had an eventful first half of 2023, with highs, a bit of friction, but also proud moments. From new assignments to excellent recruitment and increased market visibility - we have definitely made our mark. Here is a quick summary of what we have accomplished and what we are looking forward to. As honest as we can manage, in retro format this time.

Highlights

We accomplished a lot in the first half of 2023. Here are our highlights:

• After a somewhat bumpy spring, we are now well positioned for the autumn with several new assignments.
• We delivered a Snowflake-based data platform in record time, but had to put in extra work to achieve a good handover to the client’s team.
• Eystein signed on and went straight into a project. Recruitment took time, but we landed two superb people as well.
• Our efforts in visibility and marketing paid off!

Sales and projects - Solid client portfolio, now also with public sector engagements

Sales and projects | Roles we have taken

At our clients, we have served as:

• project managers for the implementation of a new data platform
• tech lead for the implementation of a new data platform
• data platform developers and architects
• advisor on organisation and processes around a new data platform
• advisor on master data and data governance

Sales and projects | What we accomplished

• We have solid and exciting organisations as clients. Our client portfolio holds up well against the clients of the large consulting firms. We continued in retail with 3 clients, started working for a bank, secured an assignment for a private equity firm, and got our first public sector engagement - at the Norwegian Tax Administration.
• We receive central roles at our clients, which is largely because we focus on new architecture, new technology and new ways of working to unlock value. We greatly appreciate the trust we are given - thank you!
• We delivered our first project on Snowflake, where we built a data platform in record time. Professionally, we feel we are strong, and we have people who are eager and quick to learn new methods, architectures and technologies.
• Our mobilisation capability in sales was strong when we discovered that staffing going forward did not look as good as it should. The sales pipeline became solid after just a few weeks. But it takes time to land assignments.

Sales and projects | Where we can improve

• It takes some effort to become fully aligned. There are several of us who have not worked together before. Going forward, we need to plan better for this, and set aside time to discuss how we want to handle various challenges at our clients, so that we can bring out greater nuances and leverage our collective experience to an even greater extent.
• We can be clearer about wanting to work alongside our clients. We made a deliberate choice to get the most technical elements of the data platform up and running quickly in one of our projects - because this was important for the client. However, this meant that knowledge sharing and maturation started later than desired. If we were to do it again, we would push the client more to prioritise working together in a joint team from day one - and rather spend more time at the start of the project. We do not want to be the “vendor” that delivers and leaves, but rather skilled people who add something extra to our clients’ existing teams. We need to keep working on this - and be stricter about it.
• Sales requires constant effort. There was a period after Easter when things looked a bit shaky. We must not forget to maintain a steady pace on sales, and not only when we suddenly see the end of our projects.

Recruitment - “The team you build is the company you build”

This is a quote from Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems/Khosla Ventures. I believe he is right. That is why we are extremely focused on getting the right people on board. And then we also need to work on how we take care of each other along the way.

Recruitment | What we accomplished

• Recruitment went very well. We have signed three experienced professionals this half-year, of whom Eystein Kleivenes started with us in March. Eystein came with a big smile and loads of relevant experience as a tech lead, data engineer and data platform engineer. And not least as an agile coach. Because there is little point in working with the latest technology if we cannot extract business value from the data. Eystein is already making a big difference! We will be showing off the other two soon.

• We have also brought on subcontractors. We collaborated with Thomas Heiberg on a project, which enabled us to deliver competence we did not have ourselves in MLOps. This left us wanting more. Since then, we have secured three potential subcontractors so that we can deliver even more broadly. We have sold the first project for an experienced architect, and also have another experienced architect as well as Yapi Donatien Achou, data scientist, in the pipeline.
• A new family member has arrived. This is a highlight slightly off topic: Troyel and his partner Keely had a baby girl - warm congratulations from all of us!

Recruitment | Where we can improve

• Recruitment takes time. We are a few months behind schedule on the business plan for year 2, but it is no crisis. We have talked to many people. We also had some near-misses on profiles who could have started, but where things did not work out for various reasons. That is fine, but the plan did not account for “event uncertainty” - as they say in project management parlance.
• We need to control recruitment costs. We have used our own network, headhunters, and received open applications. Over time, we see that we will not use headhunters to such a large extent, as we are fortunate to receive many strong candidates through the other two channels. Using headhunters is a bit too expensive for a small company that needs to watch its liquidity.
• We have also had a departure. Carina Eikaas chose to leave us, as she concluded that she thrives best in in-house roles. Carina contributed both professionally and internally, and was active socially until her last day - she will be missed. Best of luck going forward!

Internal life - Glitni is an engaged professional community

Internal life | What we accomplished

• We have become a professional community, with truly engaged people. We have managed to work together in virtually all assignments, though not always in 100% roles. We make good use of each other, but can still improve. We are at our best when we get different profiles and roles working at the same client.

• We are well underway with a partnership with a mid-sized management consulting firm (TBA). We hope that together we can deliver even more value from data. We already have several exciting sales processes underway, where we as a data-focused team get closer to business problems - and where our new friends can deliver even greater value through us with more data competence.

• We had a balanced social calendar, we felt. We went out to eat at restaurants, but also went mini-golfing and to Piknik i Parken. And we had many pleasant breakfasts.

  

• We have everything in order. Or rather - we have what we need now. We have Slack, Git, websites, an intranet, routines and the tools we need as a small company. Other needs will surely arise over time.

• We have our own office at SPACES, right by Tinghuset. It works well! Most of us stop by a couple of days a week.

• And we have merch, in the form of a mouse pad and reflective wristband. The feeling of being a proper company grows stronger every day.

  

Internal life | Where we can improve

• We have not landed the Microsoft partnership yet, as we have not chosen to prioritise the required certifications yet (Azure service partner).
• We have not quite found the right format for our internal days. We need to work together on our structural capital, and develop competence together around new concepts, architecture and technology. We simply need to spend more time scoping what we want to get out of the time, and what the specific deliverables and results should be, just as we do in our client projects.

Visibility - We are getting our share of attention, but want more

Visibility | What we accomplished

• We have co-organised the Oslo dbt Meetup together with Computas in March and June. At the latest Meetup, over 100 engaged participants attended. That made the effort worthwhile.

• We have established a decent rhythm for content production on LinkedIn and our website - and we have started testing whether we should launch a podcast about data. We will see if it becomes good enough for people to want to listen to us, or watch us on YouTube. We have also improved our SEO. We adapt all our content so that it can be found by those who are interested. That is smart.
• We have more followers who read what we publish. Glitni is approaching 1,300 followers - and has nearly 600 unique users on average over the last 30 days (as of 15 July) reading content on Glitni.no.
• We are seeing returns on our visibility efforts through leads. We continued to be fairly active on LinkedIn and Glitni.no. Suddenly, more enquiries came in by phone and email from potential clients who wanted to talk with us. No fewer than 7 in the last half-year. In most cases, it is about people we already know who think of us, and the timing is right to have a conversation about a challenge they face.
• We are also seeing returns on our visibility efforts in recruitment. More and more candidates we contact ourselves or through headhunters have heard of us in one way or another. They even say nice things about us as a professional community. That makes us a little proud!

Visibility | Where we can improve

• Working on visibility takes time, and we probably need to prioritise even more ruthlessly. Time = money, since we sell hours. We need to balance to an even greater degree what we choose to spend time on that can provide visibility. Our experience so far is that LinkedIn posts deliver good results (i.e. generate leads) - and so does engagement at events where we have speaking slots (Meetup for dbt, the Norwegian Data Association). Events where we are merely present yield little effect, and we probably do not need to have 1,000 articles on Glitni.no either to show that we are a professional community or to hit every keyword on Google.

Curious?

If this piqued your curiosity, feel free to get in touch with us or follow us on LinkedIn!