Creating realistic Demo Data for Demo/POC scenarios

Ensuring the accuracy and relevance of demo data is crucial in any product demonstration, whether it's during an RFP process or a standalone presentation. Often, we invest significant time and effort into creating an impressive app and/or Power BI dashboard, only to overlook the most critical aspect: the data itself. While we may have some experience in the client's industry, it's not always enough to create data that's truly representative of their unique situation.

In the past, we may have turned to Microsoft's demo data, but this can come across as a "low effort approach" that fails to inspire confidence in the product. Instead, it's important to explore other options that provide more realistic and relevant demo data. Why is this important you might ask? All that counts if functionality, right? Wrong! This violates a very important paradigm which is known inside the consulting industry, but still somewhat hidden to some folks, as "perception is reality". TLDR: It is not important what you as a consultant say, show, demonstrate at all. Yes it doesn't matter at all. What is important is how your client, or any counterpart for that matter, is perceiving and feeling at this moment. This is the reality for your counterpart and therefore what matters. And if s/he does not feel "at home" in your app, s/he will less likely approve a six or seven figure budget for it. This is the reason we need realistic data to make the client feel "at home", even during a POC.

Fortunately, there are now websites that generate industry-specific demo data that's both accurate and GDPR-compliant. Rather than spending countless hours creating demo data manually, these tools offer a more efficient and effective way to ensure the accuracy and quality of your product demonstration. Don't settle for subpar demo data - check out these websites and take your product demonstrations to the next level. One of those websites is: https://www.mockaroo.com/

Mockaroo.com is not the only website where you can generate realistic sample data for your POC. You can play around with AI-powered features to generate fields for your data. You can download up to 1000 rows at no cost, and up to 10 million rows if you go all out, for example, for a data lake project.

When you add fields you have a wide variety of possibilities:

This tip stresses that creating a comfortable and relatable experience for the client during a product demonstration/POCs and alike is crucial to the decision to actually win a project. To achieve this, it's essential to use realistic and relevant demo data that makes the client feel "at home" in the app or dashboard that you are presenting. Showing the app's functionality is not enough. What matters is how the client perceives the product. If the client does not feel comfortable and at home in the app, they may be less likely to approve a significant budget for it. Therefore, using accurate and relatable demo data is critical in making the client feel at ease and increasing the chances of a successful product demonstration. Tools like Mockaroo.com and other websites that generate industry-specific demo data offer an efficient and effective way to achieve this goal, ultimately improving the success of product demonstrations.