 Hello and welcome to My Career and Data, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers. I'm your host Shannon Kemp and today we're talking to Ari Leeds from Leedsource. With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry leading live online sessions throughout the year, the DataVersity Training Center is your launchpad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.datavercity.net and use code DVTOX for 20% off your purchase. Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at DataVersity and this is My Career in Data, a DataVersity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to be talking with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Today we're joined by Ari Leeds, the founder and CEO at Leedsource and normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of the guests but in this podcast your bio is what we're here to talk about. Ari, hello and welcome. Hi, thank you. I'm so glad you could join us today. So tell me, so you're the founder and CEO at Leedsource. So tell me about Leedsource. Yeah, so we're primarily a professional services company specializing in custom Salesforce.com build outs, business automation, helping people take products to market on the Salesforce platform and doing some administrative and maintenance as well support type things and we also have a product on the side that we're that we build as well. Oh, what's that product? It's called Permatrix. It's on the Salesforce app exchange. It's currently free and it's to help system administrators and security-minded people, CISOs, those types of folks getting a handle of visibility into the permissions and the deep permission setup in Salesforce. It can be pretty complex and we're trying to help people who have compliance and security in mind make their job trying to make their lives easier basically. Do things in clicks instead of hours. Oh, I love that. I love efficiency. Well, and just in case there's somebody out there listening who doesn't know what Salesforce is, can you tell me what Salesforce is? Yeah, so Salesforce is the biggest CRM platform. It does extend beyond CRM customer relationship management, but it's that's where it started and that's where all of its core capabilities really are. And it's more than just a piece of software. It's in the cloud, so it's online, but it's also a development platform. So we can build all kinds of applications and business systems on top of it and you know how you might get QuickBooks or Excel or you have these other applications that you're used to and these these are more canned pieces of software. Salesforce is more like a box of Legos. You know, it's a kit essentially. So you got all these parts and you can kind of build your business operations on top of it. Very cool. So tell me as the founder, why did you choose to start this company and what are your responsibilities in your day to day week? Yeah, so I started the company in October of 2019. I had been in a number of different positions between software development, consulting, product management. I had always wanted to start a business. I wasn't you know, Salesforce was a common thread that that technology stack was a common thread and a lot of my jobs. And I had been a consultant in it about 10 years earlier. I'd worked for consultancy. So I had some good experience there, always really liked the platform and what they did. And I took the little bits of experience that I got in my different career, my different jobs, my different titles and decided that we would get started by going back to the Salesforce world and into the services side, step away from product and try to apply some of that knowledge that I gained through those different lenses of being in product and development and management, etc. My responsibilities now are much different than they've ever ever been. I'm the head janitor. I am the lead developer. I am the accountant HR. So you know, it's a small company, a lot of hats, as they say, but it's very true. You know, tonight I'll be washing dishes and getting the office ready for the weekend. So it's it varies quite a bit minute to minute. Nice. And so you you started in 2019. And you spent just a year before COVID. Yeah, it was it was the end of 2019 as well. So it was very soon before. Yeah. So how was that building? I'm just curious, have building a company, you know, while suddenly you're being locked down, especially a consulting company? How did you how did you navigate through that challenging time? Um, it was definitely scary at first because it was just at the very beginning of COVID, it was just me and one of my my first employee. And I, you know, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen, especially when it got very real. And we I started, you know, shipping his equipment out to me wasn't coming into the office anymore. Yeah. And I remember dropping his monitor off and, you know, I left it on the sidewalk. So we wouldn't touch each other or be near each other. And then he came out and picked it up. It was, you know, definitely a strange experience. But the reality was the nature of our business, we did just fine, especially that 2020, we really did find a lot of companies, you know, their needs and what they were doing with, you know, technology very often were actually increasing. So we actually did quite well at first. And yeah, it didn't didn't really hurt us. It was tough to be away from everybody, but sure that yeah, there was kind of this thirst for technology once COVID came around. And it wasn't really till 2022 where we started kind of seeing that, you know, a backslide away from it. Yeah, we've seen that we've seen the same thing. And that's great. That's that's really amazing. That's because so much of consultancy, I imagine is is that interaction with people? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we we definitely used to do a lot more or I used to do a lot more travel on site. But it's just, you know, it's a it's a zoom call away at this point. And people were saying, you know, why why take a six hour train or a flight or a drive when we could have some of this up in 45 minutes on camera? Right? Yeah, yeah, I understand. I always I've been saying, you know, one of the pros of what this the the challenge that we went through in dealing with a pandemic is I no longer have to explain how I work from home. It's, you know, yeah, we've been a virtual company for a while. So tell me so, okay, so all right, you when you were very, very young, five, six years old, was this the dream? When I grew up, I am going to found a company. Well, I think, you know, aspects of it might be the dream. Yeah, maybe having my own company. Sure. I don't know if I thought in those terms maybe a five or six, but you know, I think I like the idea of having something like this. You know, I as a kid always wanted to be an architect. And that carried me probably through high school. And I did do a semester to two semesters of architecture school. And I said, oh, this isn't exactly what I thought I wanted. Yeah. So I would say, you know, it's there's pieces of it that are I imagined. But you know, it's not it's not as it's not the picture that was painted in my head, you know, that long ago. Yeah. So what what evolved then so so you're like, oh, this isn't for me. What was the architecture dream? Yeah, yeah, so the the romance has yeah, I think, you know, I liked drawing and I liked math and science. And I did a lot of in high school, I did a lot of like tech book architectural drafting things like that drawing blueprints. I did a lot of it. Even as jobs on the side, it was good at it. I'm using AutoCAD solid works and, you know, doing computer aided design things like that. And when I got to college, it was, you know, a lot of art history, which, you know, didn't really do it for me a lot of I'd say like, you know, certain types of theory courses that weren't really tickling my fancy. I wanted more of the what about the structure? How do we, you know, how do we analyze structures? And how do we design? And I think all that would have come. But I was really, I guess, wanted more instant gratification, maybe or more hands on more science, more math. And it was very much go sit in the Boston Public Library and write this huge, you know, essay on, you know, what was going through the designer's head when, you know, they decided to put this courtyard together. And I was just like, what am I, this is not what I want to be doing. So it just didn't end up being for me. And I ended up switching to mechanical engineering, which was right up my alley. And that transitioned when I had my first job. I loved the classes. And then when I had my first job, I said, huh, I could probably automate some of this stuff. There's a lot of formulas and equations. And that's when I started actually putting my hands on code. I said, ah, this is, I can do make things happen really, really fast. Very gratifying. And I kind of have it look back. I've been in software ever since. And that was probably 2000. Oh, man. 2009 or something like that. Yeah. Very nice. So it's a couple of things I take away from that is when you listen to yourself and went, okay, this doesn't fit, which is very commendable. But, you know, and to know yourself and not force something and then find something that you really did, that did fit you and you would could be really, really passionate about. And that I love that. So, and you, so tell me a bit about the discovery into code. I mean, it sounds like two additionally that you are problem slower. So I see a big problem here. I think that's going to be done better. You know, how do you, how did you discover those things? Is it just from doing it and repeating and finding ways to make it more efficient for yourself? Or is it talking to others? You know, I think so for one, it was definitely curiosity. And I kind of think I get into these little holes where I block the rest of the world out. Oh, there's, you know, I forget what my task was, you know, especially when I was in my early 20s, I say, Hey, you told me to do that, but I'm going to, I'm going to figure this out. We'll get to that and we'll solve that, but we're going to figure out a different way than what you told me. And I've also usually been really good at learning by myself versus learning from being taught. I was very, you know, very good at independent learning. Sitting in school and listening to somebody speak was, didn't always work out. But if I had time, if I really enjoyed the subject matter, and I put it right in front of me and get my hands on it, I kind of, you know, maybe obsess a little bit about it. And so the same thing happened here. I just, you know, touchy, you know, I'm coming up with all this stuff. There's all these moving parts. I can, I always had, I was always very good with technology to begin with. So computers weren't not like new to me at all. But I started it by writing like macros in Excel. Anybody's familiar? But, you know, automating spreadsheets was like the first step really into this world. And then I, you know, just kind of kept opening up and opening up. And I ended up at this little, what was at the time, a small software company, Brookline, Massachusetts. And, you know, we were sleeping on the couch at night, working 90 hour weeks, you know, staying at the office all day, all night. It was where it kind of got my, I call it my my honorary degree, maybe, in software development. You know, I could really, they encouraged you to get into your, your hole in your zone. And yeah. And it was just other people like that there. Oh, that's very nice. And so it wasn't just matter of finding things that you like, but in the culture that really worked for you as well. Yeah, I, I don't feel like I was so consciously seeking it out. Yeah. So I don't want to take too much credit for, you know, knowing exactly what I want and getting it. It was more going with the flow, I'd say. It's like, huh, this is interesting. Let's pivot over here. Let's, you know, move over there. And yeah, it's worked out. It sounds like it. So, so tell me a little bit about the profession of your career. So you go from coding and really learning to code and what's next? Where did you go after that job? Yeah. So after that one, you know, and that taught me all about code and databases and, you know, that was, we were building, you know, big system business systems. So it wasn't cute little apps. It was pretty, pretty heavy stuff. But that's when I went to my first Salesforce consulting company. And I said, you know, well, at the time I had a, I had a little bit of a reality snap. I had it my first child at the time. And I couldn't be doing these, you know, stay on the couch all night at work anymore type of deals. I had to get a little bit more of a solid job. So I got a job with my first Salesforce consultancy as basically a developer. I came in to write custom code on the platform for their clients, write a bunch of automation. And it was kind of easy at first. I mean, you know, I was doing building software from scratch. Now I had a platform, you know, it's like, like I said, it's a Lego kid. Imagine, you know, you don't have a Lego kid and somebody says, build me a castle made out of Legos, but you don't get any Legos. You have to build the Legos first. Right. Like you have to get the plastic and mold it and all that. And now I got this kid and I'm like, wow, I could do a lot with this. This is like a Salesforce thing. It's like a toy. And it just became really fun. And I got to know the platform very, very well. And I stayed there for, you know, maybe two and a half, three years and worked my way up. And, you know, it was running my own projects and clients after not too much time. So that kind of got me into, you know, a little more exposed to client facing work, project management, things like that. And, you know, and then there were transition after that that took me to product management. And we were building a cloud cyber security product. And they, this company was, had covered the Google platform really well. And they were trying to cover Salesforce and they were trying, you know, they tried to do something and they didn't have too many experts in house. So they brought me in as a Salesforce expert to run the Salesforce product. So now I'm building products that are integrating with Salesforce. So it's kind of a different angle, you know, and we're taking products to market. So it's a different skill set. Doing marketing and sales, working with marketing and sales. I wasn't doing marketing and sales. But yeah, I kind of mixing technology and management with taking products to market and learning how product management is separate from project management. And that was, that was a really, really great experience. I don't think I could do what I'm doing now actually without that second one because it, you learn to think more about the top down. So as a developer, you're thinking about a bottom up a lot with, oh, I can imagine what I could do with all these things. You know, I could write code that does this as an S in product management, you're thinking about what's the problem that a person or a market or, you know, segment has, and how, and thinking deeply about problems before jumping right into solutions. And thinking about what are the business needs, what are the human needs before, what are the technological needs. So that was a really critical job. And they ended up getting bought out by Cisco. So I worked there for a small period too. But those were probably the really big critical steps. I don't know if you want me to just keep going or what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is really interesting. I love this. I love this path. And yeah, so, you know, how did you, you know, get and where did you go to get to where you are now with, with building your company? Yeah, so there was what I'd say, actually, there was probably one more critical job after those that I became, I was kind of getting, let's say bored, let's say bored with Cisco. We got bought out, we were acquired, your job was a little bit more floaty. And I, you know, I'm used to touching stuff and doing stuff. And I said, all right, I got to get back to that. I ended up going to work for an energy company as CTO. So it was my first executive experience. And I'd probably say getting that executive experience was, you know, sitting on the next to the CEO, you know, that was really good, seeing how to really oversee people in a different way, really look from the company's perspective, really look at the very forward-looking, strategic stuff. So yeah, that was, that was one more experience. I did have one other job in the middle, but it was kind of like, I'm going to try this. And that was really, I don't want to say I picked up anything too new there. It was another product management job where I said, you know, I got to get back to the software world. I've been in energy for the last couple of years. I really miss like big software world. And I got into it and in less than a year, I said, I, nope, I made a mistake. This is my cue. This is like, it's time to start the business. I picked up all the nuggets that I wanted to pick up. This last one, not picking anything up here. I'm going to jump and finally make, make the call. And I called up some, called up a former clients, couple of former clients. And I said, you know, if, if I am available, like, you know, a lot, would you guys, you know, use me exclusively for your Salesforce needs. And I got, I got two yeses. And I said, good enough for me. That's enough for 40 hours plus a week of work. Let's do this. So I, you know, I launched it. And I learned all the legal pay, all the legalities and all the account. I started learning very fast, all the things that I didn't know, I didn't know. Right. As you do when starting a small company. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, congratulations. It's, it's a brave thing that you did. And that's amazing. I love that. So it doesn't feel brave, but that's what people say. Oh, it is. It is truly. And I do. And he's just a great story of, of problem solving and, and following your passion, which, which is great. Visit dataversity.net and expand your knowledge with thousands of articles and blogs written by industry experts, plus free live and on demand webinars covering the complete data management spectrum. While you're there, subscribe to the weekly newsletter so you'll never miss a beat. So tell me, so as you were transitioning through all those things, you know, what was your biggest lesson in your career that that you still use today? This probably in my whole career, I would say it's probably a little cliche, but I would say it's the failures that really shape you more than the successes. I know that's probably, you know, everybody's favorite LinkedIn meme or whatever these days, but, you know, you see that all over the place, but it really is true. You know, there's, there's definitely so many, it's like, you know, you're, it's like touching a hot stove. Nope, not doing that again. I know what that does now. Yes, there's so many things that helped me say, you know what, for now on, I'm, I'm going to create a framework for this type of problem so that this type of outcome doesn't happen again. So there's a lot of those failures, I would say, that, that are probably my, my biggest lesson is probably to accept those failures. And while I'm in the moment realize I'm having, not to get too upset at where I am and just remember that it's, it's a point in time that's something I'm going to look back at that's going to form something else in the future. So that's, it's probably accepting, accepting the failures along the way is the best lesson. I don't think that's cliche at all. I think that, I think that's such an important thing to, to drive home for, for people because, you know, it takes so long, right? Because especially when you're in the moment, like you talk about when you're in that moment of, you know, something not going right. It's, you know, and so many people are, you know, trying to perfection, right? Failure is such a negative, horrible, awful thing, but you know, but it is a lesson, right? It is to take away from and so do you use that? So you use, do you use that in your, you know, current job, you know, just like your current in the company, you know, like, hey, I'm going to, does it make you afraid to try new things or does it make you more bold to try new things? I think, I first of all, I'll definitely use it. There's an element that's harder now where I have, you know, a list of clients who are depending on me and I don't want to let them down. So I'm less, I'm more afraid of letting others down now than I am myself. So in that respect, it's sometimes harder and also as the business owner, one thing I've had to learn is to measure and balance risk and say, I'd like to do that. I don't know if that's going to work out so well for my employees though, you know, there's, there's a little bit more balance that comes into play, risk management, you know, you know, thinking about finances, things like that. So I would say, you know, in terms of operations, I'm very open to failure in certain ways, like, hey, let's, let's try to do something different and see what the outcome is more, I would say more experimental and being willing to, for that experiment to fail. But there is definitely a lot more measurement probably that happens now. But even when things, hey, when things do go bad with a client or something, I am still trying to remind myself the point in time, you know, this is only going to make things better going forwards, try to get some sleep tonight, if you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can relate to that for sure. And you mentioned measurement, which is really a really nice segue into data, you know, I imagine you work a lot with data in as a founder and CEO. And so how do you use data currently in your job? Well, probably, probably over 90% of the time, I'm touching other people's data, my customer's data, we're helping them with their data. And then, you know, I've got my own data and I probably am really not, I don't know if I should say this, but I'm probably not great at practicing what I preach on certain things because I'm usually pretty consumed with making sure the customer is taken care of and that their data is right. Mine's pretty good, I've got some good systems in place. But there's things that I'm like, if I saw this in my customer's environment, I would have them fix all this. But, you know, there's definitely a few of those things. But there's so many uses for it, and there's data, there's metadata, which is, you know, the data that describes the data or the containers of the data. And the way I'm using it, and there's lots of ways because there's data, you know, there's data for science, there's data for business. You know, we're usually trying to give executives data that, or present them data that gives them the levers for their business so that they can say, ah, this isn't, you know, this looks like this, therefore I can pull this lever to improve something over here. So we're trying to give them the information they need to make good high-level, you know, strategic business decisions steering the ship, not like, you know, minuscule day-to-day stuff. However, that comes from the minuscule day-to-day stuff. It's an aggregation of all the tiny bits and granular pieces of data that roll up from what their company actually does. You know, somebody makes a phone call. Is that logged as data? You know, an email, an action, somebody places an order. You know, somebody closes a deal. These are all, everything's generating data. And so we're constantly trying to make, make sense of it, make sure it's structured in a way that makes sense of itself naturally, and put systems around it that, you know, that hopefully aggregate it and make sense at a business level. You take, you know, millions and millions of records and try to boil them down into, you know, a pie chart or a gauge or something. And that's what we're doing all the time. And yeah, I have to remind myself to do it for myself sometimes too. There are certain things I depend on constantly for my business, like time tracking. As a consultancy, it's very heavy on time tracking. But yeah, lots and lots of, I'd say it's, it's like a, we're just building pyramids and the deeper you go, the finer the bits are. And then you're, you're building up to these things where people can make big business decisions. I can relate. You know, we have, we laugh here, you know, at a university, you know, that irony of what we do is, you know, practicing what we preach, right? It's so hard, you know, to, you're so working so hard for, for the consumer and, and, you know, manage your own data. Yeah, 100%. And we're, I'm looking forward to the day. I think there's a point where my company is big enough where we can start like, there's a whole area that covers just making sure this stuff's really good. Yeah. Yeah. So, so what is your definition of data then? So it's, it's really a collection of information that's useful for describing something. You know, data is really the plural, right? It's datum for, you know, it's allowing one little nugget of data. So when I think of data, I'd always kind of think of it in the plural. There it's, it's, you know, it has to have attributes for it to be useful. I tell you the number five is data, but it's, it really isn't until it's, there has to be metadata for it to be useful. Five watts, what's your unit of measure? Let's start there. And what is it for? So, so data, I think is, it's the, it's the information without the context. And then useful data really has to have the context, which is really the metadata or, or other types of contextual placement of it. I don't know if that really defines data, but it's got to be, it's got to consist of some kind of type. It's got to be, you know, a number, a word, binary information. It's, it's information that needs context to make sense. Hopefully it has that. Otherwise it's basically useless. Indeed, it's very, very true. And that's a very good definition. Absolutely. So, because you're absolutely right. Data in context. So, and now working with a lot of data, especially now you're working with customers who have a lot of data, you know, do you see the importance of data management and the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years? And why? So it should increase, but, you know, there's one really big, variable question mark out there called AI. So we'll putting that aside, it should increase. Yeah, there's, there's, you know, I see too often companies with the generate loads of data that don't have that where nobody's actually responsible for it. And it's, it's kind of dangerous actually. There's, because it's open to, it's open to interpretation. Lots of data is open to interpretation. So there has to be, the number of jobs should surely increase. I think, you know, companies that value their data and their operations, because now data is driving operations, you know, paperwork is basically gone from a lot of industries, not everywhere, but paperwork's pretty, pretty, pretty limited. And, you know, you've got all this digital content of data is primarily digital. And it's, it has to be put into the right hands at the right time under the right circumstances with the context. And it takes somebody to manage that data for all that to happen. You can't just have, you know, a giant bucket of data, let's say, to oversimplify it. And you've got, you know, everybody from every department dipping their spoons into it and pulling from it. You don't, they don't really know what to make of it or they might think they know what to make of it, but it really was something that wasn't meant for them. And I don't really mean in a privacy way. I mean, in a purely contextual way, it's, so you have to have it, it's got to be on the right conveyor belts, it's got to be of the right context, it's got to be in the right packaging. And it's going to take, it takes work to do that, whether it's automation or people, there ultimately has to be human beings responsible. And, you know, there's backup and there's just so many, there's so many things that revolve around that it's, it's the, it's the, it's really, it's the fuel for, for everything. Yeah, I think you're so right. You know, there's so many points where it does need to be managed by people. I would even argue, you know, that AI, you know, what goes into AI, the data that goes into AI and managing what it produces, you know, also needs to be managed. There has to be somebody outside of that world that can, that can be ultimately responsible for it. It has to come from outside. Yeah, absolutely. So what advice then would you give to people who are looking to get into a career in data in some aspect? There's so many, but, you know, whatever you choose. I think it's understanding, if they're going into a career in data management, I think the, the use of the data would probably be important. You know, are you, is it, is it for research? Are you, you know, collecting information from sensors that are floating out in the ocean? Well, you should know that you're going to be, it's going to be very research-based, statistical, you know, you're going to be one of the scientists, basically. You know, that's data where you're sifting through it to find something unknown, you know, versus with a business, it's a little bit more intentional. Sure, there's aspects of it where there's feelers out in your collecting data and you want to make sense of it, but, you know, it's, when it's, when you're in a business setting, there's, there's a business reason. Okay, you're not just sifting through the unknown as much. You're, you have to have the business in mind. And I think to be successful, you have to be somebody that thinks about what the business is doing. You can't just think about data in your own vacuum. Oh, I like data. I want to play with data. You want to think about what is, what is it being used for? Is that something you're interested in? Is it something that you're good at representing? Can you think about it in terms of the consumer of that, of that information versus just the producing side? And that's, that is that top down thinking, you know, it's, it's asking why on everything. So I think you just have to know what it's for. It's data, you know, it comes in all, all different forms. That's really good advice. And it's, it's very, very true data with intention. Yes. Well, all right, this has been such a great conversation, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, how do people solicit your services if they would? Yeah, so we have our website, of course, leadsource.com. And it's, by the way, the company is named after my last name is leads, L-E-E-D-S, like the city in England, but and source. So there's two S's in the middle, but it's, it's from in sales force as a field lead source, obviously, the source of your leads prospects. So it came from that, it actually came from some heckling, from some, from training, oh, leads like lead source. Yeah, yeah. And then I accepted it. But anyways, leadsource.com, there's, you can contact us there. That's probably the best way. Of course, I'm on LinkedIn. Anybody can feel free to reach out to me. Oh, I love it. And we will grab both those links from you and get that sit on the podcast page for everybody. Great. Oh, I love it. All right, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, my pleasure. It's good meeting you Shannon. Oh, likewise, and to all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up to date in the latest in podcasts and the latest in data management education, you go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe until next time. Thank you for listening to Dataversity Talks, a podcast brought to you by Dataversity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational webinars at dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.