Jonathan Chin: Building a Tier 1 Dataset

In this episode of Selling Signals, we’re joined by Jonathan Chin, co-founder of Facteus and author of Data-Minded. Jonathan brings a founder’s view on what it takes to build a transaction data provider trusted by institutional investors.We talk about why data businesses do not behave like SaaS companies. Data often sells optionality rather than a fixed outcome, which changes the way buyers evaluate products. Jonathan explains where SaaS playbooks break down, what still carries across and why data quality issues are different from software bugs.We also discuss aggregation, alpha decay and the role of AI in the future of alternative data. A big part of the conversation focuses on whether alternative datasets could become part of future model training rather than simply being queried through tools or MCP servers.