Don’t cheap out on expert consulting.
I recently had a call with a company that wanted to build a CDP in-house and was looking for data expertise.
Let’s call things what they are. A CDP is basically a Boeing in the analytics world. You’ve got data sources, identity resolution, user profiles, segments, integrations, activations, developers, marketers, and a hundred moving parts around all of that. Honestly, it’s probably several Boeings, not just one.
I’m not the Elon Musk of CDPs, but I know my way around them. My first intro call is always free. I’m happy to hear the problem, share some initial thoughts, and point people in the right direction.
In this case, though, it was clear we needed a real deep dive: architecture, data flows, developer conversations, and possibly bringing in someone with the right hands-on experience. So I suggested a separate one-hour consultation with my partner, who has worked on similar problems from the inside. The price was $500. Pretty reasonable, if you ask me.
My counterpart thought it was expensive.
Here’s the thing. Any serious analytics project, whether SaaS or custom-built, is going to cost at least several thousand dollars. You pay for tools. You pay with your team’s time. You pay for developers, contractors, meetings, integrations, maintenance, and the inevitable rework.
Against that backdrop, $500 for better decisions at the start is nothing. Even in a world where Claude is always one tab away.
And here’s why: a small mistake at the beginning compounds fast. Bad architecture leads to bad data. Bad data ends up in segments and reports. Then stakeholders look at it and say the whole thing is unusable. Curtain.
So yes, you saved $500. Just to burn through tens of thousands later.
If you’re working on something this big and have a chance to buy someone else’s mistakes for $500, do it.
Saving money here is usually the most expensive way to save money.
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