As I was switching through different web apps and reports today, it struck me how real-time information is today as an entrepreneur. I had just published a new post on the Kevy blog titled Managing a SaaS Metrics Dashboard With Pardot (check it out for an example on how to use a marketing automation system to feed the top-of-the-funnel SaaS metrics). Right after hitting publish and sending out a couple tweets about it, I was immediately able to see clicks and prospects interacting with it. As an entrepreneur that loves results, it doesn’t get much better than that!
Think about information from the most common apps:
- Salesforce.com – Watch sales rep activities, opportunities, and deals
- Pardot – Watch anonymous visitors, leads, and digital fingerprints
- Google Analytics – Watch information on macro hits and visitors
- GitHub – Watch pull requests and progress on the current sprint
- Zendesk – Watch support tickets and customer interaction
Of course, a dashboard with all the critical data in one place would be cool (like Geckoboard), but the fact that each system is there and can be left open in a browser tab makes it readily accessible. It’s great to be a real-time entrepreneur.
What else? What are your thoughts on the real-time entrepreneur?
David Cummings on Startups 
Real-time is a real opportunity. I broadcast a real-time tv/chat about coding. And the broadcast is even better because of the new Google Analytics Real-Time monitoring. To get viewers, I email 20 people a day who post ads for internet marketing and development help. Since I know the location of the new visitor within 3 seconds of visiting, I change the conversation to something relevant to the ad posted from that region. It’s helped me close more than 25 deals.