Data Strategy for a $6M Pet-Tech Marketplace

A $6M marketplace with 100% year-over-year growth had no dedicated data person and no unified data strategy. We delivered a complete data roadmap in 4 weeks — and stayed on as their Fractional CDO to execute it.

The Challenge: Scaling Without a Data Foundation

The company was in an enviable position — $6M in revenue, doubling year over year, and already profitable. But the leadership team knew that the decisions powering that growth were based largely on intuition and fragmented spreadsheets, not on reliable data infrastructure.

The symptoms were familiar to any fast-growing startup:

• No dedicated data person. Analytics responsibilities were scattered across engineering, marketing, and finance — everyone owned a piece, nobody owned the whole picture.
• Fragmented data across 10+ tools. Critical business data lived in disconnected systems with no single source of truth.
• Inconsistent metric definitions. “Active user,” “booking,” and “revenue” meant different things depending on who you asked.
• Decision bottlenecks. Every data question required an engineer to write a custom query, pulling development resources away from product work.

The CEO recognized that the next phase of growth — from $6M to $20M+ — required a fundamentally different approach to data. But hiring a full-time Chief Data Officer didn’t make financial sense. They needed senior data leadership without the $300K+ salary commitment.

Our Approach: Strategy Before Tools

We started with a focused 4-week Data Strategy Assessment designed to deliver a clear, actionable roadmap — not a 60-page report that sits on a shelf.

Week 1–2: Discovery & Stakeholder Interviews

We conducted structured interviews with five key stakeholders. Each conversation focused on three questions: What decisions require data? Where do you currently get that data? What would you build first with a dedicated data team?

In parallel, we performed a full audit of the existing data stack: BigQuery warehouse, Looker dashboards, internal admin tools, and third-party analytics platforms.

Week 3: Analysis & Architecture Design

We mapped every data source, identified gaps and redundancies, and designed a target-state architecture — the right stack for a 15-person company that needed to move fast without over-engineering.

Week 4: Roadmap & Recommendations

We delivered everything in a structured Notion workspace — the same tool the team already used daily — so the strategy was immediately actionable.

Key Deliverables

• Current-State Assessment — evaluation of existing data infrastructure, gaps, and risks
• 12 Quick-Win Improvements — analytics fixes implementable within days, not months
• Modern Data Stack Recommendation — BigQuery + dbt + Looker architecture
• Prioritized Data Roadmap — quarter-by-quarter execution plan
• Unified Metric Definitions — company-wide glossary
• Team Structure & Hiring Plan — first data analyst hire scoped

Results

• 12 quick-win improvements identified — several implemented before the assessment even concluded
• Single source of truth established — unified metric definitions adopted across all five departments
• Data stack consolidation plan — reducing tool overlap from 10+ fragmented sources to a clean pipeline
• First data hire scoped — role posted within two weeks of roadmap delivery
• Phase 2 engagement initiated — The client retained us as their ongoing Fractional CDO to execute the roadmap

“We knew data was important, but we didn’t know where to start. In four weeks, we went from ‘we should probably do something about our data’ to having a concrete, prioritized roadmap that our entire leadership team bought into.”

— CEO, Pet-Tech Marketplace

Why the Fractional CDO Model Worked Here

• Day-one expertise — no 3-month onboarding period
• Strategic + hands-on — we don’t just write strategy documents, we help implement them
• Flexible commitment — start with a 4-week assessment, scale up only if the value is proven
• Cost efficiency — senior data leadership at roughly 30% of the cost of a full-time executive hire