Data cultures require collaboration
Every company will ultimately need to become a data company to survive. But for most companies, the lack of collaboration is the first blocker to being data-driven. Data scientists report spending up to 80% of their time on non-model related activities, like data wrangling, infrastructure management, and version control, all of which could be easier and more efficient with better collaboration.
Data projects are cross-functional by nature. But most data tools are not. We’re all too familiar with that screenshot of data that makes the rounds, and the emails, Slacks, and shoulder-taps that follow. There are clarifying questions and follow up requests, only to find the screenshot was updated and the whole broken communication process begins again. My co-founders and I tackled these challenges when we were working at Amazon, Netflix, and Apple to build custom data tools to empower the full organizations to use data. We each turned to notebooks as the foundation and witnessed first-hand how powerful data can be when everyone is enabled.
Notebooks gain momentum
Notebooks are documents where data is analyzed and shared. They execute code, render text, persist data, and produce outputs such as interactive visualizations. They can be easily maintained, automatically generated, and are a single place where most of the data workflow can happen: From free-form data analysis to tweaking reports, building data models, and productionalizing ML models.
Jupyter Notebooks, the most popular open-source python notebook solution, started nearly a decade ago to enable scientists to tell data-driven stories. Since then, they have gained wide adoption in data science communities and have quickly become the de-facto standard to process data and produce insights. The rise of Python since 2000, due to its simplified syntax with an emphasis on natural language, has only helped notebooks gain momentum. However, there are meaningful shortfalls when it comes to collaboration within notebooks, which, for most companies that can’t hire in-house teams, limits their adoption to more parts of the organization.
Notebooks are powerful because they document the whole process, not just the outcomes. They are where insights are generated, but not yet where collaboration takes place. Analysis is happening on one screen, collaboration is happening on another, and communication breaks down in between. At Noteable, we’re on a mission to change that.
Boosting data collaboration with notebooks
We’re taking our combined experience of working at some of the most data-driven companies to build a collaborative enterprise-grade data notebook that enables everyone with data. Noteable is a solution not only for data practitioners, but for everyone who benefits from data. Noteable is a notebook that tells the full story and integrates data into the flow of business.
The collaborative environment includes all the power and capabilities needed by technical teams, such as versioning, cloud-hosted compute, multiple language support, and more. At the same time, the familiar Google-Docs-style UI meets the needs of less-technical teams, who prefer no-code visualization, intuitive commenting workflows, and a simple text editor. By putting everyone on the same page (literally!), Noteable data notebooks encourage more exploration, improve productivity, and streamline communication.
Building upon our team’s decades of experience building similar solutions, Noteable includes:
- The most powerful no-code tool for creating interactive data visualization so exploration and explanation can happen in one single dynamic environment
- A modern UI with native SQL support to empower non-traditional users to work with data in new ways
- Embedded best practices for collaboration including commenting, version control, auto save, and intuitive organizational structure
- Managed cloud infrastructure, integrated single sign-on, and role-based access control to provide a secure foundation so companies can get started with zero setups
- A large set of flexible deployment options to meet the needs of all types of businesses
Beta and beyond
Over the last 18 months as we’ve been building Noteable, we raised our Seed and Series A rounds totaling $25.4M, with Bain Capital Ventures leading the A round, and Wing Venture Capital leading the Seed round. We were recognized as one of the 20 Rising Stars as part of Forbes’ annual Cloud 100 Awards. And we’ve connected with thousands of data users across industries and roles who are looking for a better and more collaborative data platform. We’re honored by the early excitement and interest.
So, what’s next?
We’re opening up access to our beta to more users everyday and would love your feedback. You can sign up for the beta here.
We’re also growing our fully-remote team. Here you’ll find dependable, emotionally-mature colleagues who thrive in collaborative environments and are excited by what they’re doing. You can check out our job openings here.
We hope you join us for the ride as we transform the way people approach problems by making data easily accessible, usable, and valuable to everyone.
