The best data tools for startups

There are very few businesses in the 21st century that don’t use some data tools and analytics software. If you’re in a burgeoning startup, you’re likely already in a highly competitive industry. You can’t afford to have a lacking data stack. Fortunately, there are plenty of great tools out there.

Unfortunately, there are so many tools that the best ones can sometimes be hard to find. Where do you start? What’s the best data and analytics tool for your startup? We’re here to help. Read on to learn about some of the best tools available for startups and how they can help you find success in a data-driven world.

What kinds of tools do startups and new companies need?

You can’t have every data tool out there. Startups and new companies have to carefully consider their resources and budgets and make the best decisions. While you certainly need to have a data stack that provides you with the analytics and information you need to make data-driven decisions, you don’t have to spend tons of money on more tools than you need.

Every startup and business is going to have slightly different needs. Data stacks aren’t always a one-size-fits-all solution. Some industries will need specialized data tools that are superfluous in other industries. Still, there are some good tools to start with if you’re unsure where to begin. For this blog, we’ll be providing you with a list of data tools that are almost universally helpful and applicable to the data needs of most startups.M

8 tools to add to your data stack

Keep in mind, you should consider your company’s individual needs when adding tools to your data stack, but the following tools are a great place to start looking. Here are some of the eight best tools you can add to your data stack:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring, analyzing, and optimizing user acquisition. It also helps you measure website engagement. Those who have a website or app, or are looking to build a web app, will find Google Analytics to be an incredibly invaluable tool for website data.

Google Analytics gives you in-depth information about the users on your site, where they come from, and other demographics. Here are some of the other benefits you’ll get when you use Google Analytics:

• GA allows you to see what actions users take on your website. See what pages they’re visiting, how long, bounce rate, and much more.
• You can measure eCommerce metrics as well
• If you have other Google products in your software stack, GA data is easily integrated
• GA makes it easy to make reports and get detailed and actionable information about customer behavior.
• Segment data and users into different groups so you can make more data-driven decisions and marketing efforts

Although there are paid versions of Google Analytics, the free version is usually more than enough for small and medium-sized businesses. Making GA a no-brainer addition to your data stack.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another great data tool from Google that allows you to monitor traffic, learn about your website presence, and improve your website to make it more crawlable by search engines. This tool allows you to easily find issues on your website and make fixes if necessary. 

Here are some of the benefits of using Google Search Console:

• Monitor the health of your website and see if Google is having issues crawling and indexing it
• Ensure that Google can find your website
• Find backlinks to and from your website
• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
• Learn about page performance
• Get data about organic traffic and how your website is showing up in Google’s search results
• Learn about core web vitals and how your pages are working with real users
• Much more

Google Search Console is another great free tool, so there’s no reason not to add this one to your data stack! If you have a website, Google Search Console will be a great resource for you.

Metabase

Metabase is a great affordable, open-source software for business intelligence frameworks. Metabase gives users a way to store their business data and analytics securely, answer questions about data with easy-to-understand answers, and visualize data using accurate graphs and charts.

Here are some of the benefits of adding Metabase to your software stack:

• Metabase is an intuitive and user-friendly way to visualize data using tables, graphs, and charts.
• Metabase can pull data from your data pipeline, data warehouse, and other data sources. 
• Metabase is open source, so you can easily download and modify Metabase’s code to suit your startup
• Users can get answers about data that forgoes complicated jargon and code, making it easy for all users to read and understand
• Metabase makes it easy for users to share data and create in-depth reports about their business analytics

For those looking to make a great data stack on a budget, Metabase is another fantastic option thanks to its affordable cost and useful features.

Secoda

Secoda is a fantastic data tool that gives your team an easily searchable portal for company data. Think of Secoda as a second brain for your data team. Your team can hop onto Secoda’s data portal and search for data like they would on Google. This allows for improved data literacy in your company, faster onboarding, better visibility, and better data governance. Here are some of the benefits you’ll get from using Secoda:

• Aggregate data across business intelligence tools, data warehouses, DBT, and transformation tools
• Provide easy data access and data sharing with outside teams
• Bridge the data gap with the rest of your company
• Save your data team time
• Intuitive and user-friendly UI that anyone in your business can use and understand
• Try for Free

Searching for data and understanding it can be intimidating for those not on the data team and the data team is busy enough without having to answer the same questions over and over. You can try adding Secoda to your data stack for free to see if it’s a good fit for your startup!

Postgres

Postgres is an open-source database management system for enterprise-level businesses. While it might not be something you need for your startup right away, it’s good to prepare for the future and know what tools are available to you. Postgres supports SQL and JSON and provides an array of benefits.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll get when you use Postgres:

• Postgres is open-source and allows you to adjust its software to meet the needs of your business and data stack
• Postgres supports location-based services and geographic information systems
• Postgres requires little training, with an intuitive UI that is easy to understand
• Postgres provides write-ahead logging and can run dynamic websites and apps on a LAMP stack

Postgres can be used in both embedded and enterprise settings. While it might not be the first addition to your data stack, it’s something to keep in mind.

Metaplane

Metaplane makes it easy to monitor your data warehouses, providing peace-of-mind with advanced and intuitive observability.

Additionally, Metaplane allows you to add tests without needing to write code, detect anomalies in data using historical metadata, get notified about data issues immediately, and automate your warehouse-to-BI lineage.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll gain from using Metaplane in your data stack:

• Add hundreds of tests in minutes without code – everything from foundational tests to complex tests can be added.
• Automatically detect outliers and anomalies in your metadata. Monitor the metrics and trends that matter most to your business.
• Find out what data from your warehouse is used in your stakeholder dashboards and understand the lineage between the two automatically. Get a better understanding of what data is being used and why.
• Learn about data issues with alerts through your primary communication channels such as Slack and email.

Metaplane has several pricing options including a free tier if you’re wanting to try it out in your data stack to see how helpful it might be for your business.

Mixpanel

If you’re looking for another great user behavior analytics platform, you may want to consider Mixpanel. Mixpanel can be utilized to track both web and mobile apps, measuring user actions once they’ve entered an app. In short, Mixpanel provides app creators with easily understandable and actionable analytics on customer behavior.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll get when you use Mixpanel:

• Easy-to-read analytics for iOS, Android, and web-based apps.
• Intuitive and accurate measuring of user actions
• Simple user interface with in-depth insights
• Track user events rather than clicks and page views. Learn about user trends and the customer journey on your apps
• Collate your insights and get targeted information about customer actions and trends.

Mixpanel offers a free tier and affordably-priced tiers for those who need more tracking and features.

dbt

dbt allows businesses to easily write data transformations using just SQL while also providing native data quality checks. For businesses that utilize data transformations, dbt can be an invaluable addition to your software stack.

Here are some of the benefits of dbt:

• Easy data knowledge sharing between engineering teams and other teams in your business
• Easy to test data
• Flexible data models
• Open source and easily customizable
• Automatically generate documentation
• Easy data warehouse-level transformations
• Easy to train and learn
• Built-in data quality testing
• Searchable catalog for data and data lineage

Dbt provides businesses with a free trial if you want to try it out with your data stack.

Lightdash

Lightdash is a tool for combining your visual layer with your data modeling and transformation layers. If you’re using Lightdash, you can eliminate data silos and provide your team with a single source of truth for data and analytics.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll get when you use Lightdash:

• Use Lightdash on cloud or on-premise data sources
• Define your data analytics and data metrics according to your needs
• Make it easy for everyone in your business to use your data tools
• Turn your dbt project into a business intelligence platform
• Easily create charts and dashboards for your whole team
• Open source and easily customizable
• Keep all of your business logic in one place

Lightdash offers a self-hosted version that is completely free and cloud-hosted versions for an affordable rate.

Segment

Segment is a great tool for collecting and managing analytics data. It also makes it easy for developers to build and maintain integrations.

Here are some of the benefits Segment offers:

• Easily integrate over 300 tools in minutes
• Put all of your tracking code and advertising tags in one clean, intuitive API
• Easily collect and route all of your analytics data. 

Best of all, Segment is free for up to two years for early-stage startups through their Startup Program. Segment also offers reasonable pricing tiers for other businesses

Try Secoda for free

Choosing the right tools for your startup’s data stack is important. If you’re considering Secoda for your data stack, allow us to make the decision easier. Try Secoda for free and see how it can benefit your business! Click below to get started.