Setting up a world-class data science team

For Orderchamp, a post Series-A startup in the wholesale industry, we developed a 6-12 months data science roadmap, kicked off workstreams to improve their interviewing processes, made key hires for the team, improved the quality of their data as well as their product discovery experience. 

The case

Orderchamp – a marketplace connecting independent retailers and brands – is a post Series-A startup in Amsterdam. After achieving product-market-fit they were looking to professionalize and scale their data science team while building a world-class product discovery experience for their marketplace.

Our solution

We worked closely with Orderchamps CEO, CCO, head of engineering and head of product to define the data science roadmap for the coming 6-12 months. Together, we identified three areas of focus: 1) hiring, 2) the data warehouse, and 3) a world-class product discovery experience.

With the roadmap in hand, we defined the roles for their first 5 data science hires and developed an interviewing process to find the best-fitting candidates. Using our strong network in the data science community and Orderchamp’s strong internal hiring team, we were able to fill the key positions in less than 3 months.

The second goal was to improve data quality and build a well-documented robust warehouse. Orderchamp’s analysts were uniquely positioned to build the tables. They knew the data and underlying business logic better than anyone and were more than capable of writing the SQL queries to transform the data. Through a few workshops, we taught them the principles behind a strong warehouse and how to build tables through Git and DBT.

Last but not least, we kicked off a workstream to improve their product discovery experience. In close collaboration with their commercial teams and round table sessions with experts from companies like Adidas, Zalando, and Picnic we defined what a great experience looks like. Since Orderchamp is a marketplace there are many factors complicating ‘standard’ product recommendations. We need to address the needs of both retailers and brands. Furthermore, most articles are shipped directly from the brands creating the need to also reflect fulfillment and support quality to model the whole experience.

With the hires coming in, we trained them on the job for a few weeks and smoothly handed over the ongoing work. Like that, Orderchamp’s new data science team could hit the ground running with impactful projects lined up, defined, and kicked off. 

 

ACMetric co-developed a 12 months data science plan for our rapidly growing marketplace. They worked closely with our business teams, engineering, and product to translate their goals into a pragmatic data science roadmap. From there, they scoped out the necessary roles and supported us in hiring a world-class data science team while improving our ranking and recommendations system. I highly recommend ACMetric to anyone who needs to build or bring structure to their data science teams.

— Joost Brugmans, CEO Orderchamp

The impact

In our collaboration with Orderchamp, we transformed their existing MVP data science setup to match the industry’s latest standards and hired a strong team who can support Orderchamp through its next growth phase.

We saved months of time by speeding up hiring, ensuring quality, as well as creating a 6-12 months roadmap and kickstarting key projects.

From here on out, Orderchamp’s team is self-sufficient and can operate at the highest standards in the space. We’re excited to see the data revolution for wholesale marketplaces.