In this engaging conversation, Feifan Wang, Founder of SourceMedium, shares his unconventional journey from a business major who failed computer science to the VP of Product & Analytics at Resident Home (nectar, dreamcloud), a company that scaled from $7M to nine figures in run rate in a single year and exited for $1B. Feifan discusses the “dark arts” of data infrastructure that powered this hyper-growth, revealing how they built their own tech stack to manage massive complexity across multi-brand, omni-channel, and multi-region operations.
The discussion dives deep into why most data solutions fail—expensive, time-consuming implementation cycles and “black box” metrics that no one trusts. Feifan explains how SourceMedium was born out of the need for a “do it for you” data infrastructure that delivers high-quality, trusted insights in weeks, not months. He also shares real-world examples, like how Oats Overnight used data to make critical product transition decisions and how agencies like Fluency Firm use SourceMedium to align finance, creative, and marketing teams around a single source of truth.
Key Takeaways
- The “Resident” Playbook: How Resident Home scaled from $7M to $100M+ in one year by building a custom data infrastructure that allowed them to be in the top 5 global Facebook spenders without flying blind.
- Data Quality > Tooling: Why expensive tools like Looker fail if the underlying data isn’t clean, trusted, and auditable. “Bad data is worse than no data.”
- The Complexity Score: When to switch from basic dashboards to robust infrastructure? When your business complexity (channels × regions × products) outpaces your ability to manually track it.
- Unified Truth: How a centralized data platform breaks down silos, allowing creative teams to see profitability and finance teams to understand ad spend, aligning the entire org.
- Actionable Insights: Real examples of using data for CRO (like Oats Overnight’s subscription pack transition) and identifying hidden cost drivers (like Blended CAC spikes due to Advantage+ campaign shifts).
- Speed to Value: Modern data infrastructure shouldn’t take 6 months to build. SourceMedium delivers enterprise-grade warehousing and visualization in weeks.
