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The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

joemorrison.substack.com

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Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#21

Post by campchase »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #7

> Allow me to put it more succinctly: selling derived data as a subscription product does. not. work. I don’t care what it is. The juice is never worth the squeeze.¹ Count cars. Count airplanes. Count ships. Segment land cover. Track oil inventories. Estimate biofuels. Measure water levels. Etc. Etc. Etc. I see that he outlined a few exceptions at the footnote… I'll also add Plaid. I think this guy is making some hug…

I agree-most of my observations here do not apply broadly beyond the satellite imagery. One of my favorite resources for learning how "data as a service" businesses work (when they work) is the "World of DaaS" podcast that Auren Hoffman hosts: https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#22

Post by campchase »

terrycrowley wrote: post #15

This is a great example of the end-to-end argument. Putting smarts in the middle doesn't end up working because you lose the ability to optimize for the application semantics at the ends. It's an "argument" so not guaranteed to be true in all cases but applies here (according to the writer - I know nothing about the specifics of this technology/industry). But interesting to see the pattern recreated.

Thanks, Terry

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#23

Post by countvonbalzac »

I'm confused what the author is trying to argue?

1. People don't want satellite data they want their problem to be solved

So a company like Planet shouldn't (just) get satellite data they should solve problems.

2. Companies can't do 2 things at once well

So Planet actually has to choose between solving problems or just getting satellite data

3. Companies like Arturo have good focus and solve the problem of climate risk for insurance

So Arturo should stay focused on that, but where do they get the data from? Planet right? So Planet does have a set of customers for its data?

--

Edit: I re-read the article and maybe I'm just confused on the wording. Is he saying that raw data is valuable and worthwhile for satellite companies to sell but they should not do anything to the data before try to sell it?

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#24

Post by campchase »

altdataseller wrote: post #2

Is this true for all datasets that financial institutions might want to buy or only satellite imagery?

Not broadly true in my opinion. To give an example from the financial services industry:

* Satellite provider or analytics firm sells "car counts" for retail stores

* Financial institution is intrigued; this must correlate with sales, right?

* But..why don't we just buy credit card transaction data and foot traffic data from clearing houses and GPS trace providers?

I often liken satellite imagery to salt. It's great to finish a dish, but should never be consumed alone. If you don't believe the foot traffic data or credit card transaction data you're buying, you can use satellite data to check it or refine the model. But that's a niche within a niche.

The other issue I pointed out in that article is customer savvy--if you're a quant fund sophisticated enough to make use of an arcane data feed, you're very likely sophisticated enough to generate that feed yourself from raw data. And if you do it yourself, it's suddenly part of a "proprietary" solution. So you'd rather just buy images and do the heavy lifting that pay a premium to buy a data feed that doesn't quite solve your problem by itself.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#26

Post by delusional »

theobeers wrote: post #20
altdataseller wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“recently downgraded two potential startups based on data feeds to personal projects” Do you mean as an investment or place to work? And what type of data feeds were they, broadly?

I think they were referring to their own startup ideas. (I was also momentarily confused because "downgrade" tends to be used in the context of investments.)

I think this might be a case of the "grind" mindset, where ones own time is also seen as an investment. Hence the investment lingo.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#27

Post by campchase »

faldore wrote: post #6

This seems like the kind of insight that is better monetized than preached - the value will not be perceived until there is a business success that derived from it.

I sell satellite imagery. I want more people to start application companies, and less people to start data feed companies. "Preaching" is the most scalable way to try to convince people to change tack. I can't personally start dozens of application companies, but I can hopefully help spur the founding of those firms through my writing.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#28

Post by InCityDreams »

mikestew wrote: post #13
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #7

> Allow me to put it more succinctly: selling derived data as a subscription product does. not. work. I don’t care what it is. The juice is never worth the squeeze.¹ Count cars. Count airplanes. Count ships. Segment land cover. Track oil inventories. Estimate biofuels. Measure water levels. Etc. Etc. Etc. I see that he outlined a few exceptions at the footnote… I'll also add Plaid. I think this guy is making some hug…

Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too value to leave to third parties... ...or to leave to the shipping endpoint customer, either. I can't tell you how many clicks it takes to determine when a particular shipment will arrive at my door. Off the top of my head: 0. Email from vendor: "your package has shipped!" 1. Log in to the Fedex account. 2. One would think…

I've no skin in the game but having dealt with tracking a single fedex today, i found it to be a remarkably ok experience. No login, though. Their 'notifications by email' section was pretty messed up.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#29

Post by campchase »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #3

I found the animated gifs distracting, it took away from whatever you are trying to convey (for me).

I don't mind you saying this - I think my style is very off-putting to some. The same things that disenchant you about the style are what make others love it. I try to be entertaining and informative, rather than just informative, because that's what makes it enjoyable for me. But like all entertainment, it's stylized, so it will put some people off. Hopefully you found the content valuable, at least!

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#30

Post by waynecochran »

I love this attitude:

     I am not rooting for people to fail. We’re building an industry together, not playing a zero-sum game
Of course this is not the way many folks see industry competition. I think, for example, Intel, AMD, and nVidia can all "win." In fact, when one improves they can all move forward.
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