A note from our founder, Ivan Kochetov — on how companies make decisions, what we’ve seen inside more than a thousand of them, and why we built a company around fixing it.
2022Founded · London
150+projects delivered
1,000+businesses we’ve worked with or spoken to
12industries · UK and US clients
Almost nobody decides with a method
Over the last few years more than a thousand businesses have come to us. We’ve delivered over 150 projects for them. That means we’ve seen, from the inside, how decisions really get made: in leadership meetings, in spreadsheets, in Slack threads at 11pm.
Here is what I’ve learned. In my experience, 99 out of 100 teams make decisions without a method. Not because people aren’t smart. Because nobody ever taught them.
We’re taught to count. We’re taught to solve problems. We’re taught to do our jobs. Rarely, how to make decisions.
So people decide by instinct. Good decisions start to happen not when you’re ready, but when you’ve personally paid for enough bad ones. And even then, most people can’t write down how they do it — so the company can’t repeat it.
It doesn’t have to work that way. There are methods. And you can see the difference on a chart: companies that decide with a system grow in a steady line. Companies that don’t, grow in spikes and drops.
Decides with a method
Decides by instinct
Illustration, not data: the same company on two decision processes.
Where this comes from
I grew up surrounded by physicists and mathematicians. I wanted to be one. Fairly early I realised I wasn’t going to be the strongest person in that room — but I was very good at watching how the strongest people think, and how they get to an answer.
That curiosity became my career. At university I got hooked on behavioural analytics: how people make choices and solve problems. Then I started applying it to marketing, and that’s how I ended up working with data.
Two companies before this one
2012–2013
PromiseUP
My first startup: a mobile app where people made promises and bets with each other in a virtual currency. TechCrunch wrote about us, and we grew to around 30,000 users. Then it fell apart — our servers went down, the name didn’t work, and we never properly calculated our unit economics. It was my first real lesson in what a decision costs when you make it without the numbers.
2014–2021
TheWaay
A behavioural analytics platform for banks. We analysed transaction data to help banks understand their customers — and helped several of them launch neobanks. During those years I was part of the fintech transformation, not just watching it; The Banker (Financial Times) invited me to talk about where the industry was heading. In 2021 I exited the business.
What I took from both: the hardest part was never the technology. It was getting people to decide well, and to keep deciding well, once the data was in front of them.
How Data Never Lies grew
2022
We started Data Never Lies as a data engineering and business intelligence team. For the first three years we built data platforms and dashboards — for SaaS companies, healthcare providers, e-commerce brands, manufacturers and contractors.
Every project was also an experiment for us: how digital is this industry, and where does better data actually change a decision?
2024
We started our AI practice, as part of a bigger idea: Decision Intelligence. Dashboards had become cheap. AI can now draw one in seconds. What stayed hard was everything around it — clean data in one place, people actually using it, and a decision process that doesn’t just speed up old mistakes.
2026
Our construction practice grew into a separate business, Tellum, focused on UK and US contractors.
Today
Data Never Lies is a Decision Intelligence company. We bring decision-making methods, practical working sessions and technology together, so better decisions become part of how a business works.
Independent engineering teams, each specialised in a stack — Microsoft, Databricks, Snowflake and others. They own how things are built.
Layer 2
Industry leaders
People who know a sector well enough to ask the right questions and set the right task. They own why something gets built.
Our head office is in London, where we can work on-site with clients in the UK. Our engineering hubs are in Barcelona and Astana. Our business development offices in Austin and Sydney look after clients in the US and Australia. Depending on what suits a client best, we combine these options.
London Head office
Spain Engineering hub
Kazakhstan Engineering hub
Contracts are with Data Never Lies LTD, a company registered in England and Wales.
A defined piece of work — a data platform, a migration, an operational layer on top of your ERP or CRM.
An outsourced function
We become your Decision Intelligence or data function, with the roles you need each month.
Team extension
For larger companies with their own data team: we add the engineers, AI and BI specialists you’re missing.
We learn in public
Our podcast is where we talk to people who make decisions for a living — about data, AI and what actually works. Conversations so far include leaders from BP, Bolt and Taka.
We work best with mid-sized companies in the UK and US — usually led by a COO, CFO or CEO who knows decisions are slower than they should be, or by a Head of Data or CIO who needs more hands.
Probably not a fit
We’re probably not the right fit if you need a one-off small fix, a large enterprise transformation, or an AI experiment with no business decision behind it.
Start with your next decision.
Pick the first step that suits you — a session, an introduction, a resource or the Academy.
