Bringing a new product to market? Manage your data wisely to save heartache later!
Bringing a new product to market is an epic mission. There are highs, lows and many challenges along the way. But this is not about securing funding, doing research, or building a team. This is about what to do with all the data you collect. Don’t do it the hard way.
The Growing Dragon Problem
When you start out, data management is not a major concern, and you don’t have a lot of data to worry about. But if you keep going, and especially if initial success leads to more data being collected, you can quickly find that what was a small dragon at the start has grown up and turned into a fire-breathing nightmare that you can no longer ignore.
Most things are easier dealt with properly at the start, but data management is different because mistakes can be irreversible. With livestock or equipment, it makes sense to start small and build your resources over time — rear more calves each season, trade in your tractor for a bigger one, or add a new shed when you need it.
But data management isn’t like that. It’s more like riding a bike. If you become a serious cyclist, a good helmet costs the same whether you buy it at the start or a year later. But if you wait until after your first crash to buy it, it’s too late. Setting up a data management system costs the same either way, so you might as well do it at the start.
Why Spreadsheets Will Break Your Heart
Spreadsheets are a simple and popular way to store and manipulate data. They are great for small projects run by one person, but they will eventually break your heart as things expand. We strongly recommend you build a data management system right from the start. Here’s why.
- Data validation: Without rules, “orange” might appear in a column of animal weights.
- Unintended edits: One accidental keystroke can overwrite data without you noticing.
- Filtering disasters: Sorting can break row alignment, corrupting entire datasets.
- Date headaches: Is 4/3 the 4th of March or the 3rd of April? Excel can overwrite you.
- Unclear structure: Over time, column names lose meaning and require archaeological methods to rediscover them.
- Scattered locations: Data saved across shared drives, inboxes, and desktops quickly gets out of sync.
- Naming chaos: “master_spring_interim_final_final2_FINAL_approved_signed.xlsx” says it all.
- Version control: Juggling 38 versions of the same file is a recipe for disaster.
- Access risks: The more people in, the greater the risk of breakage.
- Data link errors: Cross-sheet connections are fragile and error-prone.
These are all common issues we see nearly every day, so if you’ve run into them — you’re not alone.
The take home message is spreadsheets are great for to-do lists and shopping budgets, not for managing the backbone of your product’s scientific credibility.
The Solution: Proper Data Management from Day One
We can show you how to set up a database that prevents these issues and gives you ready-to-analyse data at any time. It might seem like overkill at the start of your journey, but it will save you a power of time trying to forensically rebuild your dataset. We don’t want you to experience that sinking feeling when you realise that your dataset may be irreversibly messed up!
Stay tuned for another blog post on databases!