Second Measure
company on 3 shows · 13 statements across 2 episodes · said 13 times in 4 episodes since 2018
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 11 
My First Million 1 
Top Founders 1
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the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 11Top Founders 1My First Million 1
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 9 mentions in 1 episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
13 statements about Second Measure, every show
Most hedge funds operate without any in-house coders, Michael Babineau says
“In reality most most hedge funds have a handful of analysts and just some back office support, right? They don't have any coders in house.”
Investors generally lack the technical skills to process messy credit card data
“Credit card transaction data is, it's a messy and, like, there, it's a messy data set with unstructured data problems baked into it. And the skill sets of investors, even the more technical ones those tend to lean more towards, like, time series analysis as op…”
Babineau: Second Measure's First Customer Was a VC Who Later Invested
“So our very first customer was a VC who also ended up investing in us.”
Most Bay Area venture capital firms are Second Measure customers, Babineau claims
“And now most most of the VCs here in the Bay Area, they are our customers, you know”
Stitch Fix did not cannibalize department store spending, Second Measure found
“And what we found is that Stitch Fix had
no impact on department store spend.
Right?
People just started spending more on clothes.
Period.”
Peloton monthly active members have surpassed SoulCycle riders, Second Measure data shows
“I mean, the short version is that Peloton has now surpassed SoulCycle in terms of, like, the number of active Peloton members, right, and this is based on a spending based on spending behavior. Active Peloton members on a monthly basis have surpassed the numbe…”
Data science tools can be taught on the job, but math cannot
“It's our view that if you come in with that, that strong that strong, like, you know, mathy foundation, that learning the tools, like, the tools can be taught, right? We can, like, we're happy to help to help people get onboarded with, like, using Python. Like…”
Second Measure sees 1B unique descriptions across 50B+ transactions
“So within our data set we have So we're looking at like, 50 plus billion transactions. We have one billion unique transaction descriptions.”
Raw credit card data contains three million different transaction representations for Macy's
“So, like, Macy's alone has like three million different representations.”
Second Measure acquired its first 150 clients with zero outbound sales
“We actually haven't done any outbound sales yet, right? We have a 150 clients. Every single one of them came to us through inbound, right?”
Chou: Speed is paramount because customers won't pay for test coverage
“So speed is paramount. Nobody's gonna pay you for having excellent test coverage.”
Chou: Gaining traction shifts technical founders from coding to org-building
“There's a pretty big shift that happens once you start gaining traction, where it's less about building a product for a market and finding that fit, and it shifts more into turn, like, building an organization, a company and a system, like this system of human…”