By: Joshua Finley
David Martin has been immersed in the world of data for over 15 years. After getting his start in local analytics competitions during school, he honed his skills at major global companies and launched his own data solutions firm, Iceberg Data, in October 2022.
Through leveraging web scraping and AI, Iceberg Data delivers strategic business insights across travel, real estate, ecommerce, and more. As Martin shares, “Companies come to us trying to find out what is happening in the market real time. How are prices fluctuating? How are catalogs built up? What are the trending keywords?”
By breaking down these data points, Iceberg Data transforms raw information into actionable products for decision making and growth.
Early Passion for Data Analytics
Martin’s passion for data analytics reaches back to his school days in Colombia. He reflects, “I loved data analytics and programming since I was young. I won three competitions in data analytics while still in school.” This early success was a springboard for his future career. After graduating with a degree in economics and finance, Martin knew he wanted to take an analytical approach.
He initially tried his hand at automated trading but found inconsistent results. From this experience, Martin shares, “We realized we needed to take decisions based on data rather than intuition.” This realization would fuel his next steps.
Major Brand Experience
Before launching Iceberg Data, Martin honed his skills at premier global companies, such as General Motors and Uber. He recalls, “At GM, I worked in treasury and finance doing data-focused roles.” He then brought his analytics expertise to Uber’s internal growth efforts. Though confidentiality limits details, Martin shares they utilized data to “design sales strategy and automate processes.”
He also spent a year at CloudKitchens, Travis Kalanick’s delivery optimized restaurant enterprise. Across these major brands, Martin built expertise in launching data-driven market expansion and optimization. These skills would prove invaluable as an entrepreneur.
Founding Iceberg Data for Businesses
In October 2022, Martin founded Iceberg Data in Colombia alongside a small team. Though Colombia provided a challenging sales environment, it gave them time to hone their solutions. As Martin shares, “In Colombia, trust takes months to build. In the US, it’s faster – a sales cycle may only take weeks.”
After securing early customers locally, Iceberg Data expanded to the US and UK markets in March 2023. Martin explains, “Most of our customers were in the US and UK. Opening there allowed faster business growth.” He highlights their partnerships with Google Cloud and Bright Data as key milestones. As displayed on Bright Data’s site, Iceberg Data operates as a certified web scraping solutions partner.
Today, Iceberg Data boasts an international client base across travel, real estate, ecommerce, and other data-driven sectors. Providing tangible examples, Martin cites major customer wins like Oculatek, a UK startup, and HomeCenter, a leading Colombia retailer.
Integrating AI and Building Expert Teams
To evolve alongside market needs, Iceberg Data has integrated AI alongside expert data scientists. Martin explains, “We train AIs to understand and solve CAPTCHAs, so we maintain a 0% blocking rate across customer projects.” This allows them to provide web scraping services even on the secure platforms.
Martin also highlights their development of AI-assisted databases. As Martin shares, “One pain point is customers getting raw data files. Our new product connects all the files to a chatbot AI for easy querying and analysis.” With Google’s startup resources, this AI integration aims to enhance value for customers.
Beyond technology, Martin notes that building motivated teams is essential for scaling analytics firms. He advises entrepreneurs to “focus more on relationships than solely the product.” By inspiring people internally and externally, young data companies can evolve from scrappy MVPs to fully realized market leaders.
To learn more Iceberg Data, visit the company website here or David Martin Riveros’ personal website here.
Published by: Martin De Juan