The Challenge
Tiers, a fast-growing fintech startup in Kenya, faced the critical task of building a robust analytics foundation to support rapid product evolution and business expansion. Key challenges included:
- Fragmented event tracking and lack of standardized metrics, making it difficult to measure user engagement, product adoption, and funnel conversion.
- Limited reporting capabilities due to constraints in analytics tool access and implementation.
- Ambiguity in user journey definitions (e.g., KYC vs. registration), leading to inconsistent data and unclear business insights.
- Compliance requirements and the need for secure user identification and data governance.
- The imperative to align technical execution with business goals for investor reporting and product optimization.
The Solution
Optiblack partnered closely with the Tiers team, providing end-to-end analytics strategy, technical implementation, and ongoing training. The engagement included:
- Designing a comprehensive event taxonomy, standardizing over 60+ key events across client and server, and clarifying user journey definitions to align business and technical teams.
- Leading the integration of Mixpanel, including user profile management, advanced cohort analysis, and custom dashboard creation.
- Implementing data governance best practices, including lexicon management, secure user identification (compliance ID), and careful handling of sensitive data.
- Training the Tiers team on Mixpanel capabilities—covering natural language queries, custom alerts, and board creation—empowering them to self-serve analytics and drive data-driven decision making.
- Advising on the Mixpanel startup plan application, unlocking $50,000 in credits and enabling full feature access for advanced analytics needs.
The Impact
The partnership delivered tangible business benefits:
- Unified analytics infrastructure: Tiers now tracks all critical metrics (DAU/WAU/MAU, retention, funnel conversion, revenue, product usage) with clarity and consistency.
- Accelerated product iteration: Real-time insights into user behavior and drop-off points enabled the team to optimize onboarding, KYC, and feature rollouts.
- Enhanced investor readiness: Custom dashboards and reporting streamlined investor communications and compliance reporting.
- Cost savings and scalability: Leveraging Mixpanel credits and Optiblack’s technical expertise, Tiers achieved enterprise-grade analytics without prohibitive costs.
- Team enablement: With hands-on training and documentation, Tiers’ product and engineering teams are empowered to independently build, analyze, and act on data insights—fueling ongoing growth.
Conclusion
Optiblack’s holistic approach transformed Tiers’ analytics from fragmented and reactive to strategic and proactive, unlocking the power of data to drive product innovation, operational efficiency, and business success.