Kong

The challenge

Building clarity around product performance and business growth

Like many fast-growing companies, Kong relies on business health and product performance metrics to understand where to make bets and where to invest. The data team needed to give leaders a clear picture of business performance metrics, while simultaneously handling ad hoc data requests, running complex investigations, and making time for proactive analysis.

“Balancing these priorities is challenging but critical,” said Snehal Karanjkar. “And our data team needs to make our services optimized, secure, and scalable without burning out.” The data team started to build data projects in Hex.

The solution

Building data apps in Hex that show leadership and PMs where to invest next

Data product 1: A data app for business performance

To stay on top of ARR growth, Kong’s leadership team needs fast, clear insight into what’s driving changes. The data team built a dynamic data app that gives stakeholders instant visibility into KPIs across the full funnel — and lets them dig into any metric on the spot during weekly business reviews.

Each tab in the app covers a different stage of the acquisition-to-retention journey, and guides stakeholders with explanatory text boxes that clarify what the data is showing along the way. (see in the embed below!)

In the data app, stakeholders can explore metrics their way: toggling views between weekly, monthly, or quarterly; adjusting timelines with a sliding scale from 1 to 24 weeks; and interacting with charts to uncover patterns or outliers.

The insights from Kong's Business Summary app have been pivotal for proactive decision-making. For example, tracking ASP (average selling price) by segment revealed a high-spend customer tier, and prioritizing product enhancements for that group boosted retention and lifted ARR.

"Hex’s tab management feature lets us organize insights into dedicated views for each product lifecycle stage — acquisition, activation, conversion, and retention — enabling a granular view of user behavior and KPIs at each stage without overcrowding the dashboard," Snehal said.

Data product 2: A data app for PMs

The data team built another custom data app in Hex that lets product managers define, measure, and track our product’s most critical success indicators, including feature adoption, user engagement, and retention — all within a consistent, goal-oriented framework.

Unlike traditional BI dashboards, this app doesn’t just report metrics; it enables action. PMs can set adoption goals or engagement thresholds, track progress, and compare target vs. actual performance with intuitive visualizations.

Before Hex, the data team was buried in one-off requests from PMs. Now, product teams can self-serve their data needs while staying aligned on strategic objectives.

“Hex has completely changed how we support PMs and other stakeholders,” said Snehal. “Instead of constantly fielding requests, we’ve empowered teams to get the answers they need on their own.”

The impact

Improving ARR through product insights — and more resources for the data team

With Hex, the data team has cut back drastically on ad hoc reporting and enabled leadership to make faster, more confident decisions. They’ve accelerated delivery, saving around four hours per dashboard, and unlocked more strategic work: proactive analysis now makes up 40% of their time, up from just 10%. The result? Recognition from the top — and growing demand for the team’s influence across the business.

“Leadership’s feedback was: ‘You guys are always on top of your business. We want you to launch this for the entire product,” Snehal said. And that recognition is earning the team approval on new tools and headcount.

“Hex has transformed how we manage, analyze, and act on data at Kong. Beyond a BI tool, it’s an enabler of data-driven excellence and a strategic partner on our growth journey.”