Why Trust: The Formation of Firinn
Author: Jamie Gray, Co-Founder Firinn Data Services
Background
When deciding my next move, going back into startups was high on my agenda. The question I had most was… “doing what?”.
Deliberating on a broad spectrum of ideas, some more sensible than others*, allowed me to ask deeper questions of myself, industries, and what could be “real”.
I came to the conclusion that I still had work to do, and positive impact to deliver, in the world of data.
*shoutout to Travis May, who introduced me to “crazy dinner ideas” at Datavant leadership team meetups. It encourages you to think outside your comfort zone and more creatively, often resulting in better approaches overall.
Formation of Fìrinn
When considering my direction, leaning on my network was super helpful. I never take for granted the number of talented individuals I have the pleasure of knowing and collaborating with.
It also confirmed my thinking that, if building a startup, I didn’t necessarily want to do it on my own. I love the collaboration aspect, the bouncing of ideas, the enjoyment of creating something with others.
I am grateful that Jamie Blackport (aka “JB”) shared an enthusiasm for something new. Having worked together nearly ten years building Mirador Analytics, and then integrating into the Datavant ecosystem as Privacy Hub, we’ve spent a lot of time together in work and personally.
We’ve continually thrown ideas at each other and I’m excited to jointly bring our next opportunity to life.
With that context, I should probably get down to answering “why trust?”…
Trust; a firm belief, in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.
Trust in data use, exchange, and protection.
How Trust makes the world go round: What does trust mean to us? What value does it bring?
Trust is present in our everyday lives, there’s trust when handing over money for goods and services, there’s trust that when you’re at a pedestrian crossing drivers will obey the rules of the road; there’s trust in people that they’ll care for us, our family, our friends.
If trust ceased to exist, the world would grind to a halt…
At one end of the spectrum, complete trust brings complete fluidity and harmony. At the other, zero trust means nothing works.
Everything we do lies somewhere along this spectrum, and the more we can do to push toward higher trust, the fewer barriers we face overall.
In regards to data and AI, trust (or a lack of) can affect the stringency of contracting language, how heavy supplier qualification processes are, what our regulations look like, how organizations adhere to regulations and how they are policed. It also impacts what data we are allowed to access, which in turn impacts how deep and/or valuable insights can be.
All of these things influence time and cost, so the more we can do to reduce them (or reduce the resulting friction) the better we can function, as independent orgs and as an industry.
Reducing Barriers
At the organization level, we can reduce barriers by; building infrastructure with trust in mind, building transparency, communicating clearly, and doing it consistently.
At a network or industry level, as above …and we also add
Creating shared standards and best practice processes with independent review and/or validation
Using training & awareness schemes to promote trust
Implementing technological alignment and/or centralization to better communicate cross-orgs.
Why Trust? Our right to lead change in Trust
Why Trust? Why do I believe we have a right to lead in trust?
We (JB and I) explored various opportunities and were aligned that we wanted to solve something that also overlapped with principles we held. This narrowed the direction we are going in and the challenges we plan to tackle with Fìrinn.
We brought a positive shift within privacy, supporting and delivering privacy solutions across industry. However, we still saw challenges, challenges beyond privacy, in data use rights, between parties, and internally at larger organizations.
We concluded that these challenges could be solved with a higher order than privacy, we believe they would benefit from better trust, something that we’re firm believers in.
To take solving these challenges to the next step, I asked the same questions that we did building at Mirador;
Can we build it? Can we scale it? Can we add value? Do we enjoy doing it?
To the first three, yes, I believe that we can, and that we have the knowledge and talent in our team to take us there. We’re actively refining our roadmaps, actively building, and most importantly actively listening to industry stakeholders.
And do we enjoy doing it?
Yes, I can hands down say I am excited. To a level, that’s probably a little sad. There’s so much we can do here, and if we do it right, we have a majorly positive impact on the industry. To be able to say, “our company changed the way people and their firms trust each other” would be an immensely proud moment.
As a new addition to my questions, Why do we have the right to lead in creating trust? Why should partners trust us?
It took us time to build our reputation at Mirador, but we built it with good people, strong principles, and high integrity. We set out to be independent experts and often ended up seen as a trusted third-party. As we grew, so did our reputation for facilitating customer offerings into reality, to a point where some later partners were envious of first adopters, who had built our support and practices early.
I can hope that the reputation and success we built will follow us into this new venture, but we don’t take it for granted.
In all startups, there’s risk, and you need to have confidence to back your own vision, and faith that others will back you to do it too.
I feel our team has a solid network of supporters. Some experienced working with us first hand, or others introduced through connections. I think these supporters know that we target this with the best intentions and will bring high integrity to anything we do. And we will be trying our hardest to prove them right.
To answer my question; I believe we are strong contenders to lead efforts in trust. We delivered privacy solutions and were successful in creating change at organizational and industry levels. Trust is higher order than privacy, but combined with vision, research, and validation across key stakeholders we feel confident leading people to positive change. .
We will continually demonstrate that we are the right people to lead this. That’s why we will be sharing our journey, connecting with stakeholders, potential customers, gathering feedback as we build, showcasing our solutions etc.
With this, we hope to develop a following, welcome early adopters, participate in impactful collaborations, and create meaningful partnerships.
Most of all we hope to build… Trust
Jamie Gray, Co-Founder Firinn Data Services
