The tapioca nobody sold

There is a phrase very commonly used in companies.

I think.

It usually appears with the confidence of someone who has already closed the investigation.

"I think Monday doesn't sell."

"I think customers around here don't buy that."

"I think our audience doesn't want it."

Sometimes it is right. Experience exists for a reason. The problem starts when a hunch receives a badge of evidence and starts showing up in meetings as if it had been audited.

A tapioca in the middle of the road

There is a case told by Diego Barreto, connected to iFood, that I like because it seems too small to explain a big idea.

People from a particular neighborhood were searching for tapioca on the app. They searched and found insufficient supply.

Across the street there were bakeries.

They had tapioca flour. They had cheese. They had a griddle. They had a kitchen. They had people who knew how to prepare food.

One curious thing was missing: knowing that someone was searching for tapioca.

The data existed as a signal before becoming a decision. The customer's search was saying something. But a signal that nobody perceives is almost silence.

The interesting part of the case is not the algorithm. An algorithm is a tool. The interesting part is the hidden question inside it:

Where does a demand exist that has not yet found a supply?

That question changes everything.

Because, after it, data stops being a collection and starts having a task.

The question comes before the dashboard

Companies accumulate information with extraordinary ease.

Spreadsheets. Systems. Emails. Orders. Schedules. Complaints. Discounts. Inventory. Visits. Messages. Searches. Delays. Returns.

Reality talks all day long.

But piling up talk is not the same as listening.

A dashboard can show fifty indicators and still not answer the question that really matters. Sometimes the opposite happens: the right question fits in a ten-line spreadsheet.

That is why Data-Driven Culture does not start with the chart. It starts with a concern.

What is happening here that we still cannot see?

Intuition is not the enemy

The restaurant owner says Wednesday sells more.

Great.

This does not need to be challenged. It needs to be investigated.

Their experience perceived something. Maybe they are right. Maybe not. Maybe they are right for the wrong reason.

Intuition opens the question.

Data helps test it.

Evidence improves the interpretation.

And the decision changes something in the operation.

If nothing changes, we had analysis. Not necessarily intelligence.

Data alone is a modern way of accumulating silence

The value appears when we traverse the entire chain:

signal → data → information → evidence → interpretation → decision → action → result → learning.

This is why a technology-filled company can make poor decisions. And a small company, with simple records and good investigative discipline, can make excellent decisions.

The size of the technology does not define maturity.

The recurrence of the capacity does.

The bakery could make the tapioca.

The customer wanted to buy.

Between the two there was only one missing thing.

Someone needed to listen to the signal.

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This text is an original piece by Gustavo Santos. The tapioca case is based on an account attributed to Diego Barreto in an interview with Flow Podcast in 2025 and is used here as an example of the relationship between question, data and decision.