Analytics As Code - How Pinter Achieved 80% BI Adoption with Holistics

“When I joined Pinter, the business wasn't able to access or analyze the vast majority of its data,” recalls Alex H., now Head of Data at Pinter, the brew-at-home pioneer.

At the time, Pinter was making waves with its innovative machine that lets customers brew beer right at home. Alex, a fan and customer himself, saw the untapped potential that data held for Pinter's growth “The reason I joined Pinter was because I bought one of the machines, loved the product, and saw the enormous potential for data in the business model,” he shared.

Fast forward to today, Pinter stands as probably the most data-driven beer maker in the industry. They've used data to create personalized experiences for their customers, setting themselves apart from traditional brewers. And Alex has been central to that transformation.

We believe that no other beer manufacturer has the level of customer data that we do. When we speak to some of the biggest beer brands, they're amazed at our data capabilities.

This approach sets us apart from traditional beer makers, who brew their product without knowing at a personal level who is drinking it and their experience with their products. We have a completely different value proposition—one that's powered by data.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

In this case study, we’ll explore how Alex built an entire data infrastructure from scratch, bringing operational excellence to Pinter. With Holistics as a partner, he was able to create a robust data pulse that flows throughout the company, achieving a remarkable 80% MAU (Monthly Active User) rate and increasing customer lifetime value by 300%.

Alex’s first challenge at Pinter was to set up a BI infrastructure for smarter decision-making.

Having come from Simply Business, where Looker was the BI gold standard, Alex knew what it took to build a strong analytics platform: a self-service BI tool with analytics as code. He wanted to empower the whole business to have access to data on-demand, as well as to drive and automate key business processes.

“Delivering data effectively at a startup demands pace, but solutions need to be scalable,” Alex explains.

However, not all self-service BI tools are equal. Most lack one key element in Alex’s criteria: analytics as code. Traditional BI tools often rely on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which seem convenient at first but come with hidden drawbacks.

When you’re using GUI, it’s hard to track and manage change. But with an as-code approach, you can introduce peer reviews, better quality assurance, and achieve a lower error rate. It brings transparency to the whole process.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

An as-code approach fosters an environment where changes are trackable, data models are consistent, and the entire team can work together on a unified data source. By managing models and dashboards as code, Alex’s team can collaborate and implement peer review processes just like in software development.

Peer review is vital in a collaborative setting.It’s not just about catching errors; it’s a way of ensuring that everyone in the business understands what’s happening with our data. We use it as an educational and coaching piece.

Furthermore, models and dashboards as code can be rapidly duplicated, tailored, or extended to meet different business needs.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

On the NPS scale, for me, Holistics is 9 out of 10, because I actually recommend you guys. If I'm talking to people who are looking or evaluating BI tools, I say, go check them out.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

Alex's evaluation of BI tools was rigorous and rooted in his vision for self-service analytics and code-based data modeling. His experience with Looker had set a high bar, but the costs associated with it weren’t commensurate with the value Pinter could gain as a small business. Alex understood that the price of a BI tool should match the value it provides to the organization, and even the best tools have their limits.

As a startup, you need to be extremely careful about investment decisions. Every pound you spend on an enterprise system is another pound marketing couldn’t spend. You have to care about burn rate.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

As he surveyed the market for other alternatives, he found that the two major enterprise BI tools were not SQL-friendly, making them cumbersome to work with. Their cloud offerings were either prohibitively expensive or didn’t align with his vision of how dashboards should be built. At the same time, he found open-source BI tools rigid due to the lack of an as-code approach.

There are 2 main enterprise BI tools in the market, but they’re not SQL-friendly which makes them difficult to work with. Their cloud offerings are either unaffordable or not the preferred way to build dashboards.

Several open-source solutions allow you to convert and visualize the output of SQL queries to chart, but they are a lot more rigid as they do not support as-code. Their lack of a semantic layer meant that I had to operate with SQL models, which are inflexible.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

It was then that he discovered Holistics.

Holistics aligned well with what Alex was looking for. It offers a strong as-code approach with a code-based semantic layer, and robust self-service capabilities similar to Looker. Additionally, it offered Alex the flexibility to start small and scale up as needed, without the hefty costs that other vendors demanded.

I think your licensing setup scales very well. The barrier to adoption is very low. You can get a proper BI tool quickly and with minimal risk, even if there are some usage limitations. I appreciate how the scaling works. At the beginning of the year, I made a plan and have stayed within it, even with more users. This has helped us predict scaling and costs effectively.

For a business like ours, which is tightly constrained on cash flow, this cost structure is ideal.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

While acknowledging that Holistics is still an evolving and improving product, Alex has found the balance between values and cost to be highly favorable. Holistics offered significant value for its price, making it a smart choice Pinter.

I've been very pleased with my choice, and the business has also been pleased with the capabilities of Holistics. You have the as-code modeling approach like Looker, as well as excellent data delivery options, but at a more affordable price.

Everybody is impressed with the capabilities that it offers, and I'm sure I made the right choice. We get a lot of value out of Holistics for the price we pay.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

Using Holistics, Alex set up dashboards to monitor everything from inventory to customer service, keeping every part of the business running smoothly. He introduced the “data pulse” initiative, where management and key team members receive daily transactional KPI updates at 7 AM, offering instant clarity into Pinter's business performance.

Since then, engagement has soared, with a 80% Monthly Active User (MAU) rate across the organization.

Pinter's MAU (Monthly Active User) rate remains steady at 80%

Every day, all management and key team members receive transactional and marketing KPIs automatically, so everyone knows how the business is performing. I call it the "data pulse"—we have clarity on what's happening in the business every morning at 7 AM.

We also use Slack to operationalize processes, like measuring failure rates by combining customer service and transaction data. It’s a way of unifying the different parts of the business and breaking down silos.

Now there isn't a single major meeting that doesn't refer to our data, every executive is data-aware, and every key decision data-informed.

-- Alex H., Head of Data

Beyond driving dashboard adoption, the flexibility of Holistics’ code-based modeling layer empowered Alex to conduct deep-dive analyses that directly impacted business growth.

Alex was able to perform detailed cohort lifetime value (LTV) analyses, which uncovered traits of Pinter's highest-value customers. Senior management regularly engaged with these dashboards, and, upon identifying drivers of high LTV, they initiated targeted acquisition strategies to attract these high-value customers.

The flexibility of the modeling capabilities allowed us to visually display cohort LTV analysis. This then allowed us to drill down on characteristics that influenced high LTV.

The business had been prioritizing a certain type of customer because they converted well, but using Holistics, we were able to identify that we should focus on a different type of customer—one that may convert slightly less but delivers six times the value over time.

Off the back of this analysis, we launched a new proposition that showed a lot of promise and then launched a complementary multivariate experiment in our acquisition funnel. The result of this data-driven development has been a near doubling of our online acquisition conversion rates, as well as a complete shift in the acquisition profile of our customers.

This should lead to a 300%+ increase in customer lifetime value while dropping our CPAs by 30-40%. A real win for data!

-- Alex H., Head of Data

The immediate and clear success of these strategies deepened the organization’s trust in data.

With all executives now regularly monitoring these high-stakes initiatives, data has become central to every critical decision at Pinter. “All the executives monitor the resultant data and analysis on a frequent basis,” Alex says. Executives now actively monitor these high-impact initiatives, gaining a newfound appreciation for the insights the dashboards provide. This culture of transparency and reliance on data has solidified the habit of frequent dashboard use across the team, driving an impressive 80% Monthly Active User (MAU) rate.