How Competitor Data Can Explode Your Business Growth in 2025
Show summary
In this conversation, Randhir Singh, a senior business consultant, shares insights on the importance of data analytics in consulting, the role of competitor analysis, and strategies for market research. He emphasizes the need for businesses to understand their data from day one and how to leverage it for growth. Randhir also discusses the evolving job market and the importance of building a strong personal brand, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn.
Key takeaways
- A new business should study competitor data before its own, since picking up what competitors do well and avoiding what fails them can cut your failure probability by about 50%.
- Collecting your own data from day one is essential — not collecting data already puts a business at a disadvantage.
- AI tools and chatbots only tell you what you're currently doing, not what to change; a consultancy's value is turning data into specific recommendations.
- Avoid entering markets where a dominant competitor is heavily promoting (e.g., Culligan in water softeners) because you'll pay far more to compete; instead target areas that competitor hasn't saturated.
- Sales and marketing success often comes down to targeting the right audience segment — e.g., pitching solar to new-construction homeowners with high utility bills rather than already-canvassed neighborhoods.
- Curiosity-driven marketing (cited examples: Netflix cryptic billboards, Game of Thrones storyline patterns) can generate outsized engagement compared to straightforward messaging.
- Mass-applying for jobs no longer works the way it did in 2020 (500 easy-applies used to generate ~20 replies); job seekers now need a strong personal brand and portfolio on LinkedIn and platforms like TikTok to get noticed.
In this episode
- 01:31Introducing RanDhir Singh, senior business consultant
- 01:51How RanDhir got into consulting during COVID
- 02:49How data and AI consulting has changed since 2021
- 06:17Industries and companies RanDhir has consulted for
- 08:30When a startup needs to start tracking its data
- 10:12Why competitor data matters as much as your own
- 11:18Market research example: water softeners and Culligan
- 13:36When it makes sense to enter a market with established competition
- 16:17Using curiosity-driven marketing (Netflix, Game of Thrones examples)
- 16:54Where to find RanDhir and advice on the job market and LinkedIn
About the guest
RanDhir Singh is a senior business consultant based in Southern California who runs DST Consultancy. He started as a data analyst and moved into consulting during COVID to help struggling small businesses understand pricing and data. He has worked with companies including Rio Ganga, a real estate-focused company, a travel agency partnered with Sabre, and P&G, and also mentors young people breaking into the analytics field and job market."
Listen to the audio
“If you're a brand new business, you need to know more than knowing your data because you're brand new, you need to know your competitors data... your probability of failing automatically decreased by 50%.”
RanDhir
“They're never going to come and tell you what you need to do. They're only going to tell you what you're doing.”
RanDhir
“Now the entire thing is how your portfolio looks like... This is what I'm worth. This is why you want to hire me.”
RanDhir
Questions answered in this episode
When should a startup start paying attention to its data?
RanDhir says a brand-new business actually needs to understand its competitors' data more than its own at first, because studying what competitors do well and poorly can cut your probability of failure roughly in half. From day one you should also start collecting your own data, because not collecting data from the start already puts you at a disadvantage.
Can I just use an AI tool instead of hiring a data consultant?
RanDhir says AI tools and chatbots will only tell you what you're currently doing, not what you should do differently. A consultancy studies patterns and tells you what to change, whereas you'd otherwise spend many hours manually filling in and interpreting data yourself.
Should I enter a market where a competitor is already dominant?
Generally no — RanDhir advises avoiding areas where a competitor like Culligan (in his water softener example) is heavily promoting, since you'll pay much more to compete there. Instead, look for a region where that competitor isn't doing well and build your market with less competition, similar to targeting new-construction neighborhoods for solar sales instead of ones already canvassed.
How has the job market and LinkedIn strategy changed for job seekers?
RanDhir says mass-applying no longer works — in 2020 he could easy-apply to 500 LinkedIn jobs a day and get ~20 replies, but that approach gets almost no response now. Instead, candidates need a strong personal brand and portfolio on platforms like LinkedIn (and TikTok) so employers come to them, showing clearly what they're worth and why someone should hire them.
What kinds of businesses has RanDhir's consultancy worked with?
He mentions a company called Rio Ganga, a real estate-tied company, two CEOs of different companies, venture capitalists, a travel agency partnered with Sabre, and work with P&G. He also describes helping a high-tier CEO quickly distill millions of rows of data into the top three insights needed for a meeting in about 30 minutes to an hour.
Resources and links
Full transcript
Dylan Silver (01:31)
folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a senior business consultant in Southern California, bringing strategic insights and solutions to help businesses grow. Please welcome RanDhir Singh. RanDhir, welcome to the show.
RanDhir (01:46)
Thank you, thank you, Dan.
Dylan Silver (01:48)
in. So how did you get into consulting, right?
RanDhir (01:51)
So my major step into consulting got back in like when COVID hit, right? I was a data analyst, but I also wanted to do something back for the community. Every time you see people struggling, community struggling, businesses struggling, I did want to reach out and help out in whatever way it was possible for me. Number one thing that I saw with small little businesses struggling with was not knowing what the best price for an individual product would be and where they could get it from.
Everything has a bottom line. That’s data. Being into that field, was like, knock, knock, this is the time for you to go out there, help all people. That’s what initially come up for us.
Dylan Silver (02:31)
And so getting into the consulting space with an emphasis on data, a lot of times people come into you asking like, hey, this is our business and this is what we’re trying to get to. How can we maybe streamline this and what processes can we take advantage of to move maybe a little bit quicker than we’re moving?
RanDhir (02:49)
So currently, if I’m looking back at 2021, it was a completely different story. you’re at 2025, it is a completely different ballgame, right? With the help of AI, data is evolving. I started into data analytics, or getting into genealogy back in 2012, and now the game is completely different. I have evolved along with it. Let give you a quick backstory, right? Have you seen those big crop pots and stuff that had multiple options of
that the multiple options of cooking one of them said hot air cooking and nobody really looked at it but as soon as they took out an air fryer everyone’s like this is the thing let’s jump on this but it was just a one sub product of the entire thing same thing machine learning is huge which takes data and everything’s in place with it but AI is just a subsection of it nobody was ever interested in machine learning because
Everyone just, they just took out a sub portion and call it AI and everyone’s like, this is the new thing. I’m like, it is, but it’s just normal NLP, NLG. That’s all just happening. Before we were living in the space of binary, like ones and zero, ones and zero, same thing, alphabets also get assigned those same binaries because we still don’t have complete quantum and stuff with computers yet. So the same thing as being assigned.
The same way they’re just taking those terminologies and stuff and breaking it down. It’s just called natural language generation where they’re all breaking down and getting you. And if today I had to go and ask someone on Google, like, hey, please give me this. Number one thing that everyone needs to understand is Google’s not giving you the right or the wrong answer. It’s giving you the most optimal answer.
Right? Like majority is saying this. That’s what every AI tool is going to give you. It’s not going to give you what, is the right answer. No, this is what the majority of the population think is right. So number one for your business, what, going back to your question, what process or anything that a business needs silicon to number one, what are the biggest problem that they’re facing?
And second, in your environment or your area, we check that whether anyone else is facing the same problem or not. Third,
What’s working in your neighborhood? And if we don’t find any of these three answers, then what we say is we try the hook or crook method and stuff like small tweaks in your business that have previously worked with others. But we usually tend to get the results in the first three, like seeing like these are the patterns that are working for someone. These are not the pattern that working in the environment. This is what way we can help your business.
Dylan Silver (06:17)
I want to ask you about which verticals or which industries you’ve seen a lot of your clients come from and maybe where do you see some growth opportunities or where do you see business consulting maybe scaling into other areas where it might not currently be in, right?
RanDhir (06:36)
think when you involve data into your consultancy, you’re like a very narrow field, right? When it comes down, but if you’re looking at it, it’s so broad that every single industry is involved. Every single industry is involved. I have a company called Rio Ganga that I’m tied up with, They are completely with them.
And then we have another company that is with the real estate that we’re tied up with. have on back. had stopped this for six months because I had a newborn, so I have no time at all to like give it to this piece of work. I have like other venues and other businesses that I’ve come into. But before that, had my couple of CEOs that were tied up with me and like anyone that wants quick and quick results.
I was okay to give my service to, had like two CEOs of different, different companies. And I can’t go into that matter, sorry about that, but I had like big venture capitalists. Like we even had travel agency that needed our support. And they were part of Sabre. Sabre is a travel tourism company that gives you good packages. And now we have worked with the city as well. Like I would work with P &G a little while ago and different, different companies, whatever needed our services, we provided it to them.
And like, there were big individuals inside of the company. Imagine, right? I’ll you a quick story of like, if you imagine if you’re the very high tier CEO and you want to go out in an hour and give a meeting presentation, but you still even offer those services, like you can come to us within 30 minutes or whatever you need, we’ll break it down into the data perspective, give you the top three hitters. So that way you can walk into the room in an hour with full confidence. You don’t have to tangle with millions of rows of data.
which is giving you the results what you need to step into the room and talk about.
Dylan Silver (08:30)
I want to ask you about your niche data, right, as it relates to consulting, right? I think people can have consulting from many different areas, right, but when it comes to data, oftentimes people are sitting on lots of information and not certain, you know, how to utilize it and how to capitalize it. At what point would you say, Rondir, it’s critical to understand your data? If you’re looking at a startup business, do you need to know the data from day one or is it when you reach a certain number of
Gross revenue,
RanDhir (08:59)
Completely depends. So if you’re a brand new business, need to know more than knowing your data because you’re brand new, need to know your competitors data. We’re going to provide you with those insights. We help people like, these are what your competitors are doing. And you want to pick up the good sides and eliminate the bad side. So your probability of failing automatically decreased by 50%. And you need to actually start revolving into your data.
From day one, need to A, is collect the data. If you’re not collecting any data, you’re already putting yourself on a chance to failure. We’ve seen a lot of CEOs, and they just want to do everything by themselves, and they want to track the data, they want to read the data, and they’re like, there’s so many AI tools, we’ll just shove it in and we’ll get the results back. By all means, you can definitely do that. But again, it’s not going to give you…
what you can do better, it’s only going to give you what you’re doing. That’s why the biggest difference between a consultancy and a chatbot or anything that comes in, like they’re never going to come and tell you what you need to do. They’re only going to tell you what you’re doing. And for that, you’re going to go crazy filling up the data by yourself manually for so many hours.
Dylan Silver (10:12)
I ⁓ you talked about competitor data, which is an interesting point, right? Oftentimes, we think about data and we’re focused on what we’re doing. But if we take Zoom out a little bit and we see the playing field, studying the competition, understanding competitors’ data is as beneficial, if not more in many cases, right?
RanDhir (10:30)
Guaranteed.
Guaranteed, you’re coming.
Dylan Silver (10:33)
So what’s that process like
for them?
RanDhir (11:18)
So, with our best thing, the new client that we just signed up for, Ogungrin, for their market research to like, let’s say for example, anywhere their competitors are like, I would say for water softener, Colligan is one of the biggest players of that. But a water softener game is like how solar was in 2022 or 2021. Everyone kind of needed it, but it wasn’t completely aware about it. And people who are in 2025 are too late into it.
Same thing with the water softener, it’s pretty new. People need it, but they don’t really know if they need it. And the same thing, we’re helping them with all the market research. And if Collegens already present heavily in an area, we do not enter this area because Collegens heavily promoting their product over there. You can succeed, but you’re to be paying a lot more to succeed in that area if there’s high competition. Try to look into another region where Collegens not…
promoting too well or not doing really well. You might want to pick this area so that you can build your market without like any competition. Like a quick example of someone that one of my friends told me is that how does sales work best? I was like, sales work best because of law of averages, you know, three out of 10 is always going to say hi, right? And one out of them is bound to go with you. Like if you’re a good salesman, can, out of 10 people, one is a guarantee sale.
and how better you keep getting the number of sales out of those 10 increase. And imagine if you go to an area already, like if you wanted to sell solar today, you knock on a house, oh, we’re here for solar, we’re here for solar. They’re already not, they’re already already, you can not sell them anything, you can only upsell. Now your probability just decreased massively. But imagine if someone just routed you in an area, hey bro, new houses, brand new construction, this is the area that you should go and hit.
Brand new buyers, all new and energized buyers, like, you know, they paid massive for the houses and stuff. Nobody would mind paying $100 or $200 extra a month because the bills are going crazy with Edison. Knock on those doors. Every potential person who walks out of the potential customer. Your closing rates are high. Your market research, which was given to you as optimal for you, like, hey, this is the place. I’m going to go get a solution.
Dylan Silver (13:36)
Now when folks are looking at competitor data, they’re looking at their own data, they’re trying to maybe pivot or figure out where to go to next. Is there ever a case where it might be advantageous to go to an area where there is an established presence because therefore people may know about the vertical, right? And so they may be comfortable with the idea.
RanDhir (13:57)
You want to do that in the case where you want to see what strategies are working. Like, for example, for a few of our clients, we do go and do market research when they want in-person research. Because we don’t just come and tell you, this is working. We probably have to study it, find it out. Imagine, if one company comes and says their sales are skyrocketing in this area, we want to jump into that area. But wait a minute, let us actually see what is actually working for them.
Right? Because sometimes what happens is like, sometimes like, if you talk about social media and marketing, right, sometimes instead of positive marketing, negative marketing work, you’re like, don’t click on this, don’t click on this, don’t click on this. If you want to make money, people are like, shit, I don’t want to make money. That’s the urgency, right? Sometimes it’s not about what they’re doing. It’s about why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it. Why does way more like the best out of the best billion dollar idea that I
explain anyone is the Netflix with their advertisement billboard taking a huge billboard and just literally putting like like one like 10 letters or something on it or like upside down and that that had nothing to do with the show nothing to do like our way like how they can get it it was just like a quick thing meme where like people who actually watched it would know it but that just generated so much curiosity in people that they’re almost
What are they talking about and everyone who didn’t even watch strangers thing? They know what I’m talking about, right? Like everyone was like, what’s this? What’s this and everyone’s got him getting more curious curiosity increases the talk about it
Dylan Silver (15:29)
Yeah.
RanDhir (16:17)
and the same thing happened with Game of Thrones Right, like if you see that pattern or anything that entire thing depends on data like whoever you think is probability of that’s winning that’s winning dice they kept doing that
until fans got caught on, fans got caught on and then they stopped doing that and then they started collaborating towards the end. Right? Those are the small, small things like, you you want to, it’s about catching people’s attention, creating their curiosity. If you can, if you know how they are doing it, you might as well do it to your business as well. Like biggest Kickstarter, sorry about that.
Dylan Silver (16:54)
No, no, that’s
okay. I was gonna say we are coming up on time here. I know that you’re involved in a number of businesses as a consultant, and also our audience may be curious to reach out to you if they maybe are in SoCal or outside and are looking at consulting services. Where can folks go to maybe get in contact with you or learn a little bit more about the work that you’re involved in?
RanDhir (17:15)
So we have dstconsultancy.com where everyone can go right now since I started it back up to seven months. So we’re still like tweaking up our like website a little bit. So it should be up shortly. And you can personally reach out to me and run here saying on my Instagram handles or we are also on TikTok as well explaining like young entrepreneurs or young people who want to get into analytics field. We have them on from scratch. Cause right now, like I would say like job market stuff.
Right. For all the young folks, like a lot of my friends reached out to me like, Hey, job, actually very tough. I tell them it is. I’m not going to lie, but you have to be so much proactive compared to what you were before. Because if you’re not, you’re not making it that that’s bound to happen. You’re never going to make it through. If you’re not proactive, you have to step up your game. Imagine if you were putting.
You know, like back in 2020, if I was doing that one click easy apply, easy apply on LinkedIn, I would easily click like 500 on them in a day and I would get like 20 replies. Now they don’t exist anymore. You keep on clicking like crazy. Even if you click thousand times, you’re not going to get the response. Now, now the games change. Now you don’t want people, people are not coming to you or the other. You’re not rushing behind them. Now the entire thing is how your portfolio looks like.
Dylan Silver (18:20)
Right.
RanDhir (18:35)
Now that you see the portfolio, this is the guy I want to buy into. Make a good LinkedIn profile for all the young people out there. Make sure you’re like everything out there. You’re putting it out. Like, this is what I’m worth. This is why you want to hire me. If you cannot, there are people who already doing it. Right. And they’re succeeding in it. There are still jobs out there, but are you the right fit or not? They’re never going to know without even talking to you. So how are you going to get that first talk with them?
is through a good presentation of yourself on social media like LinkedIn as the number one for job hunts. And if you’re a young Tik Toker or anything, your profile needs to tell who you really are or what you’re trying to get into.
Dylan Silver (19:15)
Ron Deere, thank you so much for coming on the show here tonight.
RanDhir (19:18)
Anytime,
anytime, anytime. yeah, for any P anyone out there for all the people like follow us and like us. And if you want easy solution, you can always contact us. Thank you.