The rising cost of living and distribution is a big challenge for consumer packaged goods companies. Consumers' disposable income isn't going as far as it used to due to inflation. The pressure is on businesses to come up with innovative ideas. The stakes are higher during less chaotic times.
Black Swan Data is a data science and tech company that Steve King helped launch in 2011. Black Swan uses data from conversations on social media to map "growth opportunities" for companies, trying to identify trend signals more accurately than traditional market research approaches.
King and Amos were co-founding Black Swan.
In an email interview, King said that he and Amos had their "eureka" moment in a Toronto bar. We returned to the U.K. to start Black Swan after we scribbled the idea down on a beer mat. Data is irrelevant unless you can harness its power effectively, so we felt there had to be a better way for businesses and brands to use it.
Black Swan is trying to predict social trends and sales data months into the future by using published research. To conduct market research, the platform looks at billions of posts over a two year period and then filters for roughly 400,000 different concepts. For example, when people talk about food that is healthy for children to eat after school, the data would includeThemes,Ingredients,Brands,Product types,Benefits and needs. Black Swan was able to find the relationships between concepts to extract insights that could help guide a company's product development.
King said that using artificial intelligence gives users the ability to see the future. Black Swan is similar to the largest focus group on the planet. It continuously analyses this data to map growth opportunities and identify emerging trend signals earlier. The ability to bring a more scientific and comprehensive approach to the new product innovation process will help brands to de-risk decision making in uncertain times.
Product development is dangerous. Almost all of the 30,000 new products introduced every year fail. Between 70% and 80% of new grocery store products fail in their first year.
Is it possible to predict success using artificial intelligence? It isn't clear what the answer is. Black Swan is one of a number of companies that claim that they can, including Black Crow Artificial Intelligence, which sells a service that projects which products e-commerce customers will buy, and Turing Labs, which uses artificial intelligence to make consumer packaged goods. It doesn't mean that an algorithm will be accurate tomorrow. In the worst case, the predictions can be off course as the data changes.
Black Swan doesn't replace human judgement. He said it was meant to help companies see product categories through the eyes of consumers.
As of late, Black Swan has grown its customer base to 50 companies, including PepsiCo and J&J. Black Swan plans to double its workforce to 200 by the end of the year after raising $17 million. King said that the startup would focus on growing its U.S. market share and supporting product development.
The funding round was led by Oxx. The company has raised $18.6 million to date.
Black Swan was founded on the belief that brands can make better use of what people are talking about publicly online to understand their behavior, anticipate moments, and mold them to their advantage. Black Swan sees the market from the consumers' perspective and this is reflected in the growth of the company.
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