#171: Emad Hasan, Co-Founder and CEO of Retina, a Data Science Platform Focusing on Customer Lifetime Value, on Transitioning from Resource-Rich Companies to Building a Startup, Leveraging User Data, and the Importance of Foresight
Emad Hasan is the co-founder and CEO of Retina, the customer intelligence partner that empowers businesses to maximize customer-level profitability and boost revenue with the earliest and most accurate customer lifetime value metrics. They use machine learning and data science to pinpoint your highest-value customers using the data you already collect — and deliver the insights you need to reach more just like them. Retina helps optimize businesses and increase valuation with action plans from their strategy consultants. Using deep analytics, they turn enterprise data into timely, actionable insights delivered to decision makers in a natural language narrative. Retina is a venture-backed startup located near the beach and third street promenade in beautiful Santa Monica. Their customers include Nestle, Capital One, Madison Reed, Backcountry.com, Brickell, and many others.
Emad possesses an extensive knowledge of entrepreneurship, data science, artificial intelligence, social media, and marketing. First and foremost, he is a technologist who likes solving people problems using data science, machine learning and software algorithms. He aligns with companies and causes that empower people, democratizes technology, and makes the world more of a meritocracy. He currently wears several leadership hats at Retina across the operations, product, and data science teams. Prior to joining Retina, Emad built and ran analytics teams at Facebook and PayPal. In addition to his work at Retina.AI, he is a blogger, speaker, startup advisor, and an outdoor adventurist. He enjoys spending time with his wife and son, as well as playing pickup beach volleyball in Santa Monica.
Connect with Emad Hasan
Some of the Topics Covered by Emad Hasan in this Episode
- What Retina does
- How Emad started Retina and how the business idea has evolved
- Emad's background and experience working at Booz Allen Hamilton, Boeing, Facebook and PayPal
- Adjusting from the context of resource-rich major companies to bootstrapping a startup and transitioning into entrepreneurship
- Emad's experience failing and the lessons he has learned
- Customer acquisition for Retina
- Their approach to fundraising for Retina
- Customer lifetime value and how Retina approaches it
- Leveraging user data
- Retina's target customers
- The biggest challenges Emad has faced in building Retina and how he has tackled them
- Educating the market about customer lifetime value
- Retina's approach to talent acquisition
- Product development from a data-driven approach and the importance of foresight
- How Emad recharges away from work
- Emad's book recommendations
- Emad's advice for entrepreneurs
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