“Improved Automation Through Data Analytics” with Amanda Truesdale and John Taylor of YBR Analytics

Jeffrey (1s):
Well, here we are sitting in our zooming radio studios for Radio Entrepreneurs. Believe it or not over seven years, we’re creeping up over six, seven, 6,000 interviews. Over a million people have connected with us over time, our best, best one of the year of over 40,000 viral views of one interview. Let’s hope this next interview hits that those types of numbers. So we’re going to be talking with Amanda Truesdale and John Taylor co-founders of YBR Analytics. Welcome both of you.

Amanda (33s):
Thank you.

John (35s):
Thanks for having us.

Jeffrey (36s):
Thank you. I’m very interested in analytics, I and an ever changing world. So tell us about YBR.

Amanda (45s):
Oh boy. Where to start, John, do you want to take it or me

John (49s):
Go for it? Okay.

Amanda (52s):
So John and I go way back without sharing all the history. We’ve been friends for a long time. We both have a passion for analytics automation. We do a number of different areas. Primarily we do a lot of stats and programming, but our backgrounds are pretty diverse. And we think we bring to the table to many clients on different things, but the commonality is the analytics. So it’s the automation. We try to look at processes and make them faster, better automate, and basically see where we can add value by training.

Amanda (1m 33s):
We’re both statisticians. We had a bit of a diverging path, and then we came together in July of this year to form a YBR Analytics. John, I could go on forever. So maybe I’ll just start with that and maybe ask you to add more. Yes, yes.

John (1m 49s):
But I was going to say, I think something that we, we tell our team quite often, so we have some programmers that work for us and we, we feel that we can deliver high quality faster, more efficiently with fewer resources. So as Amanda said, you know, automation is something that I myself am really passionate about. We enjoy being able to solve many of the same problems with fewer programs or with less effort. And so that’s, that’s something that really drives what we do, but, you know, the, the stats is what got us both started the statistics.

Jeffrey (2m 28s):
So again, I’m trying to make this as practical as possible. I’m starting to understand what you do. I understand the analytics, statistical analytics, but who are you doing it for? And what are they asking you to do in, in what particular context?

John (2m 43s):
Sure. I was going to say, you know, many, many of our clients tend to be in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. So we do a lot of work in clinical trials. Amanda, what were you going to

Amanda (2m 58s):
Say? Yeah, I was just going to say what we do is not necessarily industry specific, but because of our backgrounds, we’ve both spent 20 years in the pharma clinical trial space. So that is where most of our network and where our clients are and where we bring the most experience. But some of our smaller clients also are just one-off small companies that are looking for something to be automated. So they might have something that’s done manually, maybe a reconciliation between two files and it’s small, but they’re doing it. And it might take somebody, you know, four hours every week to do this task. And so what we help do is come in and just look at what they’re doing and come up with.

Amanda (3m 43s):
We use SAS primarily, but there are other softwares as well. And we will help automate that task to make, you know, what would be, say a four hour tasks, for example, you know, turn into, you know, a half an hour and it’s more accurate because it’s, it’s being done, you know, in a, in a smarter way.

Jeffrey (4m 4s):
Right. And then you say you just came together in the last year. Why don’t you give me some of the background of the two of you and then how you came together and is this your first entrepreneurial venture? I just bumbled up a few questions. Okay.

John (4m 19s):
Yeah. So, so like Amanda said, we, we became friends at Boston university 20 years ago when we were students. And you know, we both graduated with degrees in statistics. I’m already blanking on the question. What was the question again? So, right, right, right. So, so it starts there, but we just launched the company in July. So it’s only been four months, which to us is crazy because we’ve spent our entire careers doing this type of work. And so we often say to each other, we can’t believe it’s only been four months, but we spent at least a year really kind of thinking about what if we were to do this, how would we do it?

John (5m 4s):
What would it take? What would we need to do? And so, even though it’s been four months of the company actually existing, we’ve been thinking about it for much longer, Amanda, your perspective. Yeah.

Amanda (5m 16s):
Yeah. I know John sometimes will always say like, we historically, you know, over 20 year period kind of make little jokes. Like we just started our own company. Right. Like something that some companies doing, like, we’re like, yeah, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s not good. Like we should start our own company. We’re better. Right. But it was always kind of a false promise up until a point where at some point we just kind of looked at each other and was like, let’s do this. Like now now’s the time, like we can do this. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s both of our first ventures. And we, we also feel like where we’re similar, not even just in our education, but in our, in our backgrounds, both of our families very much encouraged us and kind of humble beginnings if you will.

Amanda (6m 3s):
So from that more, you know, with cultural standpoint, I guess, you know, we, we feel aligned that way in what we’re coming together to do is, is more than just, you know, start a business and make money. It’s like, let’s add value. Let’s do right by our employees. Let’s, you know, grow in a very concerted way and do it smart so that everything we do, we can feel proud of. And, you know, I like to say like at the end of the night, like I can put my head on the pillow and I can sleep and everything feels great about what we’re doing. So we, like I said, we we’ve known each other for 20 years through school.

Amanda (6m 44s):
And then really we reconnected probably in the last like five years or so. Cause we were at a joint company together and more working together again. And then, like John said in the past year, really more finally being like, let’s do this. So

Jeffrey (7m 2s):
Do either, or both of you have entrepreneurial backgrounds in your lives or prior experiences?

Amanda (7m 9s):
I haven’t really, my husband owns a company, but you know, I’ve never worked there. His family and my family has a little bit, but not to this extent, but in 2009 or so I got my MBA and just enjoyed that program. So in some ways, like, I, I don’t feel like I learned as much in terms of hands-on, but I think the mindset was there and it, and it definitely helped encourage me over the years in these moments for John. And I would say, let’s start a company. And then finally coming to a point of saying, yeah, we can do this. We can do this.

Jeffrey (7m 50s):
All of it. You expected being an entrepreneur or

John (7m 56s):
Sometimes. Yeah, I, yeah. I, I mean, I I’m having a blast. I think Amanda is too, you know, we, we would often say to each other, right before we launched, let’s just try to enjoy the ride. We, we really don’t know what’s going to happen. We, we felt strongly in our, in our abilities, we felt that we really could do this. You know, what started as a shared passion for stats turned into a shared vision for how we think things should be done and how we think, you know, work in our industry should be performed. And so we, we felt confident and I think things have been going faster and bigger than either of us expected or at least than I expected.

John (8m 40s):
I think Amanda always knew it would come to this, but it’s, it’s been fun. It’s hectic at times. And you feel like to some extent you’re always working, but I’m enjoying it. I’m really loving it.

Jeffrey (8m 55s):
It’s technology going to change your business dramatically. You think over the next two to three years,

Amanda (9m 3s):
Two to three years, I don’t think too much. We were remote. Maybe we should say to virtual Simon, Rhode Island, John’s in Florida. And our two employees are actually in Canada and we’re we’re growing. So, so we’re virtual. I mean, obviously technology, you know, we use zoom, COVID helped of course a lot of that, but we were, you know, we start we’ve started virtual. So from that standpoint, you know, we’re, we’re good. We have good systems technology and processes work for internal things. And in terms of technology of what we actually use, as I mentioned, we use SAS. It’s, it’s very much industry standard for submitting applications to the FDA.

Amanda (9m 49s):
And I don’t see that changing if anything, there’s probably more technologies coming into play in particular with some of the analytics and review of data. But I don’t see SAS going away anytime soon, if anything, the technology is probably more additive.

Jeffrey (10m 5s):
We’ve been speaking with Amanda Truesdale and John Taylor, cofounders of YBR Analytics, Amanda and John, if someone wants to learn more about YBR, how would they find the company?

Amanda (10m 17s):
Well, this is funny. So we don’t have a website yet. That was one of our goals for this year. But because our work took off pretty well, we haven’t actually found the need. So we are on LinkedIn and you can find YBR Analytics. We do have a social media presence there. So that would probably be the best way or, or obviously just email us directly, but we actually don’t even have a website yet. So that’s something we’re working on for 2022

Jeffrey (10m 45s):
And con how do they connect with you

John (10m 49s):
Then LinkedIn, most likely would be the best way we, we found that we’ve been using it a lot more since launching the company.

Jeffrey (10m 58s):
Good. I want to thank you for being on Radio Entrepreneurs. I look forward to you being on and then the next year, and hearing more about the progress of your new young company. And again, thank you all our listeners for tuning into Radio Entrepreneurs.