Q&A with Arup Banerjee, CEO at Windfall Data
What is your elevator pitch / 30-second sound bite for Windfall?
Based in San Francisco, Windfall is a data company that is changing the way data-driven organizations identify, understand, and engage affluent consumers. The company was founded by seasoned executives with deep-domain experience in data and data science. Utilizing deterministic data sets and proprietary algorithms, Windfall focuses on providing actionable consumer financial data.
Windfall models out the net worth of affluent consumers with more than $1 million in wealth. In addition to net worth, we also provide additional household-level data (we call them triggers /signals) so that our customers can analyze their existing customer base and acquire net-new customers through omnichannel marketing.
How does Windfall utilize ATTOM data?
Windfall processes billions of data points across 50+ data sources on a weekly basis. Since we update our models each week, we need to get
the most up-to-date, accurate information possible. ATTOM sends Windfall data on a weekly basis with updates to both recorder and assessor records that we leverage in our machine learning models.
Since Windfall models net worth on a household level, real estate data is incredibly valuable to us to ensure that we understand: (a) who owns the property (b) when it was purchased and (c) the details around the property (square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc). All of this information is leveraged as we link properties together and model out net worth across our other sources.
It is incredibly valuable not only to understand the current ownership and individual data points, but we also get historical data from ATTOM. Understanding ownership changes across a property, and therefore the entire population, gives us the ability to become smarter with our models and build great new features off of time series.
How is the marketplace responding to Windfall’s products / services, specifically those integrating ATTOM data?
Windfall officially launched in July 2016, and since then we have amassed 200+ customers in sectors such as nonprofits, financial services, retail, hospitality, and automotive. Our team makes it as easy as possible for our customers to activate Windfall’s data. Specifically there are three uses cases that most of our customers fit into:
1. Identifying affluent customers / prospects in their database
When we match to a customer’s database or CRM, they are easily able to determine the affluent population and overlay any of the signals that we provide on a weekly basis.
2. Understanding their existing customers and prospects
By leveraging tools like segmentation, clustering, or machine learning algorithms, our customers get a deeper understanding of customers and prospects in their database. For example, many of our nonprofit customers leverage our data to find “hidden gems” in their existing dataset. These are individuals who may give $25 or $50 a year, but have the capacity to increase that gift to $250, $500, or more per year.
3. Engaging with consumers at the right time
Based on our net worth data and additional signals / triggers, our customers can change their messaging, strategy, or product being offered to different users. In addition, Windfall helps customers acquire net-new customers that fit their ideal customer profile through various channels including social marketing, digital advertising, and direct mail efforts.
Windfall takes extreme pride in making sure our data is as accurate as possible. By building off ATTOM’s deterministic real estate data, our team (and therefore our customers) are confident that our algorithms are built on accurate data.
Why did Windfall Data decide to use ATTOM Data Solutions?
When selecting a vendor, Windfall looks at several lenses: (a) sales process (b) price & term (c) customer service and (d) track record. The entire sales process was a pleasure since we were treated like partners versus prospects. Despite being an early stage start-up, the price, process and terms were all reasonable and happened in an organized and efficient manner.
In fact, given our process we entered into a multi-year partnership as both sides felt comfortable.
What has been your experience with the data delivery?
After initially getting set up, our data delivery has been consistent. We receive data on a weekly basis and have set up appropriate protocols to automate processing the data.
What has been your experience with the data quality?
As with any data vendor, data quality can never be 100 percent. Often times there are errors in the county records. ATTOM has been responsive in answering our questions and trying to resolve them to the best of their ability.
What has been your experience with customer service?
Similar to the data quality, there are certainly ups and downs associated with getting onboarded with a new vendor. While email generally is a good support mechanism, it isn’t the way that a lot of data questions can be answered. When we ran into more complex issues, ATTOM was very willing to schedule a call and help us work through the path to success. We hope that this level of customer service continues!
Windfall was founded by seasoned executives with deep-domain experience in data and data science. Utilizing deterministic data sets and proprietary algorithms, Windfall focuses on providing actionable consumer financial data.
