FactoryFix is a leading marketplace that connects manufacturing companies to a vetted network of over 150,000 skilled pros such as machinists, programmers, welders, and more. For manufacturers, FactoryFix eliminates the friction between posting jobs, finding candidates, screening, and making offers, and helps them discover great candidates fast. FactoryFix shares information about market pay rates for skilled professionals while offering connections to better jobs and side-gigs and provides training for future opportunities.

Challenges

Customer data and product analytics have been critical to FactoryFix’s roadmap, customer success, and revenue growth; however, only 8 out of 40 employees had access to data due to several constraints:

• Adding more users to their previous vendors, Chartio and Mode, was cost-prohibitive: about5x the cost of PopSQL.
• Chartio and Mode didn’t quite meet the needs of two distinct user groups: SQL savvy technical users and non-technical business users.
• Both Chartio and Mode are dashboard-centric tools which made their editor challenging to use for rapid SQL iteration and collaboration.

“Exploratory analysis in Chartio and Mode didn't happen because everything is centered around dashboards. If you want to look at a query you have to first find the dashboard and then dig in -- you can’t just search for your desired query and share it with the stakeholder you’re working with.”

The FactoryFix team found that provisioning access to their databases was difficult, and even if stakeholders got access via MySQL Workbench, it wasn’t intuitive to use. Since access was restricted to a few users, there was a significant burden on their shoulders to answer everyone else’s questions; and in many instances, these were repeat questions.

“The standard process was for employees to post their questions on Slack, which created bottlenecks and delays in getting questions answered.”

Solutions

Upon evaluating PopSQL through a free trial, FactoryFix found that PopSQL was the best-fit platform to finally democratize data access for all. With PopSQL, end-users had instant access to the company’s databases, easily searched for, collaborated on, and customized queries, and had all the mission-critical dashboards at their fingertips.

PopSQL’s easy-to-use interface, coupled with its core features -- folders, advanced search, query variables, scheduled reports, version history, Slack integration, shareable queries -- made it easy for all users to get their “foot in the door” with SQL and make smarter decisions fast.

“It’s clear when using the product that it was built by people who spend a lot of time writing queries and digging into data -- it's an ergonomic experience to explore data and share insights with others.”

Results

FactoryFix initially piloted a paid plan for their core 8 users. After a successful pilot, the team decided to expand to 30+ users just one month later. “There was a lot of excitement for other teams to get onboarded, which was dirt simple in PopSQL. Within a day, 30 people had access, knew how to navigate PopSQL and how to answer their own questions. It was painless,” explains Scoptur.

The benefits FactoryFix has received have significantly reduced costs, improved productivity, decreased time to insight, and increased the amount of data-driven product decisions:

• 5x cost savings by PopSQL instead of expensive dashboard-centric tools.
• 2-4 hours savings per analyst per week, allowing more time on strategic insights.
• Actionable, company-wide insights delivered in real time through Slack and email.
• Sales and Success can autonomously answer questions and drive positive business outcomes.

“What makes PopSQL great is the ability to write a query, Slack it to the person who would be excited about the data, and then they can fork that query into their own and be inspired to find additional insights."

"Recently, a Customer Success rep received a PopSQL query from a teammate, forked the query, did their own analysis in PopSQL, and found a drop in interview acceptance rates, a key customer health metric, which wasn’t on our radar. With that new insight, we prioritized several product features to improve interview acceptance rates and decrease an account churning risk.”