How We Use Data Science to Power a Human Network
Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack… what do they all have in common?
They all make finding, connecting and engaging with people quicker and easier.
Just think how quickly you can now find professional connections on LinkedIn, or how easily you can now get an answer to your question by posting in a Slack community. But it’s a bit hit and miss.
But is it all about just the tech?
What about the human side?
We’re busy individuals that need to connect quickly with people that are like-minded and that understand and empathise with our challenges.
And the human element is definitely something that tech can’t fully replace – at least not yet!
This is especially true when it comes to finding those more specific connections that you need for your business. One’s that understand your businesses challenges, who’ve been there and done that before.
Whether that’s full-time resource or part-time advisory support, no amount of tech or data can replace the vetting and screening that goes into making sure you have the right people for the job.
That’s where a blended approach really comes into its own.
And it’s where some of the biggest tech companies are placing their bets right now too – in a combination of intelligent algorithms (machine learning or AI) and human input.
The best of both worlds, some might say!
Intelligent Matching
The world of recruitment and sourcing expertise is somewhat split at the moment.
On the one hand, you have the traditional human approach.
Find a specialist recruiter and they will manually source candidates that both they and you will then interview.
On the other hand, there are ‘job’ platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr.
You search on a specific skill set, and a number of potential ‘fits’ appear that you as a business can engage with.
But what about intelligent matching?
Where the ‘fit’ is more highly optimised and the match is perfectly aligned with the stage your business is at and the problems you’re facing.
Or take a step back – you know you have a problem, but you don’t know what it is or how to prioritise it against other challenges.
It’s this sort of ‘strategic’ view on a set of circumstances that isn’t always fixed by a quick search on LinkedIn or Upwork.
And it’s this form of intelligent matching that is missing from the equation.
How the Invigorate Platform Works
The platform we’ve built at Invigorate is hinged on the premise of intelligent matching and built off hundreds of in-depth conversations we’ve had with both scaling businesses and the advisors they work with.
You can walk through the process step-by-step to learn in real-time how it works!
If you’d like to read up beforehand though, then here’s a bit of background…
Our process for vetting both Businesses and Advisors is a strict one.
Our Advisors
Naturally, our advisors are drawn to Invigorate as they understand the client base we serve. This forms a natural selection process of individuals that know what it takes to grow a scaleup.
When an Advisor is accepted onto the platform, they have the opportunity to specify their strongest areas of expertise and where they can add the most value to scaling businesses.
In addition, we’ll ask them a variety of questions around their hard skills and their soft expertise, as well as their previous experience, the stage of business they’ve worked with in the past, and other specifics relating to the results they’ve driven for ambitious businesses.
Our Businesses
In a similar way, we vet our Businesses during the sign-up process. We’ll ask them a series of questions relating to the stage their business is at, the investment they’ve raised, the revenues they’re generating, and the business challenges they’re facing.
This information gets fed into our intelligent matching algorithm to then pair the best Advisors with the best Businesses! In essence, our software identifies from the data who the best advisors are for each business, based on their specific needs and preferences.
As the platform builds up a bigger database of these matches, the algorithm is then updated and refined. The data science loop kicks in as the software learns more about the pairings that are working the best.
And as the engagements between Advisors and Businesses grow, we also layer in factors such as ‘Most Reviewed’, ‘Most Engaged’ and ‘Helped Businesses Like Yours’.
It’s this critical information that we’ll be building up over time and that will form an important part of the recommendation and matching process.
What if the Pairing Isn’t Right?
If you find that the matching isn’t right to start with, then you can simply adjust your search parameters. For example, this may happen if you grow in size or one of your requirements changes as you scale.
The parameters you can adjust are:
- Domain expertise (e.g. sales, product, marketing, leadership)
- Sector
- Stage
- Your changing business needs
And if you’re still not able to find what you’re looking for, then don’t worry, as that’s when the human component will kick back in.
Our team is always on hand to assist and if you can’t find the exact Advisor you’re after, we’ll gladly step in to find them for you.
As with any good data science programme, the more matches we make and the more data we feed into the software, the better the algorithm will become!
And so we’re counting on you to help us get there…
We’ve done the work of setting up the platform and onboarding a number of great Advisors and Businesses, now it’s over to you to get the algorithm working as hard as it can!
At Invigorate, we’re passionate about bringing together the best business minds and we recognise that a blend of tech and human input is the way to do this.
We’ve designed a platform that takes the hassle out of finding and engaging the right Advisors for your business. And we’ve built software to power that intelligently too!
Where the platform truly excels though is in making those human connections more quickly and more easily, and paving the way for relationships that will accelerate your business’ success.
We hope you like what we’ve built so far and that you’re ready to help us make it even better!
Why not browse the platform for yourself? You can take a look through some of our Advisor profiles or get in touch with us for more information – [email protected]