Company Culture

Mission Statement

Our mission is to maximize the value of data for our customers. It has often been said that data is the new currency and there is a lot of truth in that statement. Unfortunately extracting the value of the data and therefore maximizing that currency is often easier said than done. At Narrative we strive to build products that make that value extraction easier for our customers. While the ways we do that will evolve over time there are some core principles that will remain the same.

  • Eliminate Complexities: Increasing amounts of data produced with little structure. While unstructured data allows for richer data sets it makes it harder to use by the business because it lacks that structure. Our goal should be to minimize the complexities that come with large unstructured data sets without losing any of its value in the process.
  • Standardization: One challenge in the data economy is that there are little in way of standards. From format, to licensing, to delivery mechanisms everything is custom across different partners, products, and platforms. We believe that standards will bring more users to any data application.
  • Discovery: It is our belief that there are a number of different types of data consumers (analysts, data scientists, product developers, etc) and that those consumers often are in search of data sets but with no easy way to discover them. A core part of our offering will make it easier for people to procure data on demand based on their evolving needs.
  • Pricing: While data might be the new currency, no efficient pricing mechanism exists for data. We firmly believe that the market should determine what data is worth and we are committed to building products and features that help develop that market.

Core Values

Transparency is always better than opacity

Everyone working at Narrative needs to be able to quickly act to various business situations. In order for them to do that effectively they need access to all of the expertise and information that exists within the organization, something that is not possible if there is a culture of opacity. We will strive to be transparent in everything we do.

All team members are equal

While members of the organization will have different skill sets, personality types, and seniority levels, no one person on the team is better than any other person. We will treat each other with respect, listen to all opinions, and harness the value of a strong collective team. Narrative is a firm believer that diversity within our organization will allow us to make better decisions and thus create a better company.

Make quick decisions and then change course as needed

Many organizations become paralyzed by their inability to make decisions. To quote Aaron Sorkin “every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts.” This same principle holds when running a business. Most decisions don’t have a right and a wrong. In fact most decisions aren’t binary at all. As an organization we should prefer making quick, well informed decisions, implementing those decisions and then course correct as needed. This is almost always preferable to taking a long time to make a decision and still having to course correct afterwards.

Product Development Process

At our very core Narrative is a product and technology company. To deliver the best possible product to our customers we need to have our eye on the long term vision while being nimble and evolving with the market. We have adopted GIST to act as our product roadmap methodology.

For more on our implementation of GIST check out “Product Development Process”.

Dev Culture

For more on our culture that may be more specific to software development, check out the dev culture and “a day in the life” pages.