Goodbye 2023 🎄 - Issue 178
A recap of 2023 best publications, heaps of confetti, and even more heaps of gratitude, and what’s coming next!
Welcome to the last newsletter of the year 🎊 from the Data Analysis Journal, a weekly advice column about data science and product analytics.
If you’re not a paid subscriber, here’s what you missed this month:
Fixed vs Rolling Time Windows? - How to figure out when to use fixed (calendar) vs rolling (moving) time windows. What “year-to-date” means, and how to determine the right time window for retention analysis.
My Most Challenging Analysis - Reflections and learnings from my most difficult analysis.
Parsing Semi-Structured Data In SQL - How to work with semi-structured data and process JSON formats via SQL.
Another devastating year
Today marks 672 days of a full-scale war in my home country. The more it hurts, the more I find myself writing. I understand that for some readers, the war in Ukraine may read as an abstraction, a distant event that exists within headlines in newsfeeds. This vicious event has directly impacted me. This war took away my cousins, my extended family, my childhood friends, and many of my classmates. My hometown was completely destroyed:
Here is the hospital where I was born, the street where I lived, the school I went to, and the church where I was married.
I want to encourage everyone not to buy or use Russian products or services.
Refuse any donations, funding, or sponsorship from Russian organizations or affiliates.
Cancel and decline any cooperation with Russian artists, writers, bloggers, engineers, and scientists.
Please refrain from promoting Russian art, poetry, culture, and cuisine.
82% of Russians support this war.
⏪ A rewind of 2023
As for my newsletter, this year was full of experiments, opening up my journal to other writers and collaborations.
🔥 This year, I had the honor to tackle my favorite topics in top-rated newsletters:
🌟 Thank you to my guest writers for sharing their expertise:
Introduction To Analytics Engineering by
from .How To Accelerate Data Reporting With Automation by
from Push.ai.Why Today Is The Perfect Time to Learn Data by
from .
📈 Together with from , we launched the Analytics Recaps series:
(We didn’t do a December recap because we both got pulled into something super big! Keep an eye out for an update. We will be back with more recaps in 2024)
⭐ The most popular publications in 2023
I published over 50 articles across SQL, Python, experimentation, product analytics, statistics, and reporting this year. Here are the most popular publications:
SQL and Python
Know your user
A/B Testing
Set your foundation
Career growth, advancement, and self-learning
🏆 Invest in your growth and shape your own path
If you are reading this now, it means (a) congratulations, for better or worse, you’ve successfully ventured into data analytics (I don’t engage in paid marketing or ads; my newsletter is NOT easy to find unless you wade far into the murky data waters), and (b) you have the motivation to grow and learn. That’s truly what it takes to succeed. Now, let’s help you stand out.
The best investment you can make is investing in your own growth and skills. Most companies offer professional development and training budgets for their employees. A subscription to my newsletter is reimbursable, and you can expense it through your company.
For active students and recent graduates, I am giving a 50% discount → click here. You can also email me at olga@berezovsky.me with your university/school name, and I’ll set you up.
This newsletter is my personal little project that I work on outside of my regular job on Friday nights (who knew Friday nights could be so exciting?). It isn’t affiliated with or sponsored by anything in any way, and it grew where it is today because of your support. Thank you, thank you! ❤️
Proceeds from subscriptions are donated to Ukrainian Children's Aid and Relief Effort charity. I am joining their efforts to help Ukrainian children impacted by the war. We are raising funds to purchase food, clothing, medicine, and bare necessities.
🚀 What’s next in 2024
In 2024, I have an impressive lineup of experts joining me to share their career paths in analytics, guiding us on topics like best practices for setting up data teams, leveraging data for decision-making, optimizing reporting, selecting appropriate tooling, and much more.
I’m also excited to take you behind the scenes of analytics at Stripe, Pinterest, Meta, Airbnb, Doordash, and more. You will learn about how analytics teams are structured, the tech stack, how workflow and processes are set up, and get a peek into the specifics of analytical projects that drive growth and revenue.
In this newsletter, I will continue to advocate for analytics principles and values I stand behind:
People + Process > Tooling: For every $10 spent on a tool, $90 should be spent on analysts, analysis, and intelligence.
Self-service is a myth: Good answers don’t help with bad questions. Invest in people who ask the right questions.
Traditional experimentation doesn’t serve us well anymore: RIP the old-school hypothesis testing. It’s behind the current revolutionary instrumentation (e.g., Adapty, Superwall, Split.io, NamiML, etc.). Feature flagging and dynamic paywalls completely re-defined A/B testing in ways we still don’t understand. We need a new process, a different mindset, and lower expectations of the test data confidence and accuracy. I hope next year (with your help), I will land on a framework for analyzing modern “A/B tests,” which are a never-ending series of short optimizations.
Prioritize learning Active users over acquiring New users: If you want to sustain for over 18 months. For this reason, I don’t write about marketing analytics. My passion lies in fostering DAU engagement.
Scaling revenue follows scaling user engagement: Unlocking growth comes with thorough user behavior analysis of the user onboarding, activation, upgrades, lifecycle, cohorts, network effects, and much more. Such analysis requires statistics, baselines, modeling, and critical thinking. Don’t set product and marketing managers up for failure with self-serve and “get data insights fast.” Invest in analysts and data scientists to help you interpret data accurately and make it actionable.
🙏 A quick favor
Before you go celebrating and making resolutions, I have a favor to ask. As my audience grows, I’d like to understand better how this journal can stay relevant and help you progress in your career.
I’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to fill out this brief survey. It will take 5 minutes of your time but will help me quite a lot. I’d be so grateful.
Hope you have a great end of the year ☃️. See you in January!
Related:
Hi Olga,
RE: Another devastating year...
"This war took away my cousins, my extended family, my childhood friends, and many of my classmates. My hometown was completely destroyed: Here is the hospital where I was born, the street where I lived, the school I went to, and the church where I was married"
I'm sorry to hear how this world-denounced invasion by Russia has devastated your life. Those pictures are heart-broken. I grew up in Viet Nam during the Vietnam war (1961-1975) and lived through the devastation by the Communists up to my early teens; just sharing.
But please know that you are not alone. Your strength will inspire others. With deepest sympathy
Much love Olga, thanks for sharing. I'm so sorry to hear about the travesties this year 💔
Praying for you and all those affected 🙏 and thanks again, for all that you do for the community.