“We’re sitting on this treasure trove of data, think of how valuable it is if we could get other people to pay for it.” As a general rule, I think most companies overestimate the the value of the data they have and underestimate the challenge of creating a product people will pay for. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it. After all, many companies are sitting on top of transformational, hard-to-access data that other people want. But in order to assess if there’s a “product” there, we need to be really critical of its potential market fit and thoroughly vet others’ willingness to pay.
Excellent points, thank you for the article.