Non-Quants Buying Data

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5 Things that Matter to Non-Quants (Fundamental Hedge Funds) Buying Data :

• Alpha- Is this providing me alpha? If the data is going to tell me something about a stock I own or am thinking about owning?

• Coverage- What companies does your data cover? Compared to quants, I don't care as long as it covers a company that I care about. I am happy if the dataset is only relevant for one company.

• History- How much history do you have? I am okay if it’s only a few months. Again I care what this data can tell me now. Ideally, I can see 2 years of history so that I can better understand seasonality, but it’s not an absolute must-have.

• Explainability- Is it explainable? This is important. I need to understand what the data is telling me and why. It needs to make sense. I need a story. If it’s just a score or prediction and under the hood, the inputs do not make sense, it is going to be hard for me to get excited.

• Delivery- How do you deliver the data? Front-end login is great. Excel download is even better. Available via research report works too. API, Snowflake, or FTP- depends on if I have a data team and how much bandwidth they have.

Bonus points if your team understands the companies I cover, whats currently happening in the market, and how that relates to the research I am doing. Ideally, I can have a conversation with the vendor and they can provide me insights.

Selling data is hard. Figuring out how much to sell your data for is hard. Having an understanding of what is important to your clients shouldn’t be.