This week, the SphereCast team speaks with Kevin Crosbie, Chief Product Officer at RavenPack. RavenPack is a platform that gives meaning to unstructured data. The platform offers speed and accuracy in analyzing large amounts of unstructured content — newspapers, emails, social media, and more. The company then enables clients to quickly extract value and insight from this processed data. Regarding speed, RavenPack can analyze one page of data every 300 milliseconds — which is, literally, the time it takes to blink.

Some estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of all the world’s data is unstructured, so the spoils go to those individuals and companies that find a way to interpret this goldmine. RavenPack has found a way to do just that. On the podcast, Kevin discusses all the key use cases his platform can meet, explains the difficulties of migrating to the cloud, shares some of the most difficult decisions he has to make, and describes what it’s like to be driving the direction of an industry-leading product. 

Noteworthy Quotes:

"One of the hardest things to do is prioritize... There are so many things we want to do. We've got our fingers in lots of different pies because this world is moving very fast. And we're one of the leaders in that."

"For the most part, the pandemic hasn't impacted RavenPack itself... The pandemic actually made firms realize that they need to make more data-driven decisions and be able to monitor the media for important things that are happening."

"A lot of our financial industry clients prefer a rules-based approach because one of the issues you have with something like machine learning is that it's 'black box.' It's not easy to say, 'This is why I got this result.' And those clients require transparency... They must show the reasoning behind making decisions."

"Make sure the team you have is amazing. Otherwise you can't make amazing products."

"Trusting my team to get things done — that's how I manage my time. I try to keep them from getting stuck. I think they should be autonomous, take responsibility, and be owners... And start with the hardest problems first."

"Definitely there were some growing pains in the beginning [of our cloud migration]. Moving from a server-based solution to the cloud does require some re-architecture. It required some investment... But the benefits have paid off so much."

"A good leader must keep people motivated. Give people a purpose. Share the vision with them. Make sure they're on board and that everyone is working together."

"If you're a business that has a strong core with a reliable model, then you have a much better chance of surviving and prospering. The pandemic verified that."

Bullet List of Resources – 

Kevin Crosbie

• LinkedIn
  
  
  

RavenPack

• Company Website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn