Step 4: Prepare the correct data, or “fuel,” to achieve your desired outcomes

It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your algorithms are if you don’t use the right data to fuel your predictions, so make sure your data spreadsheet is:

Long — You need a lengthy list of entries to ensure your data is representative. 

Wide — Note pertinent information about each entry in the row connected to the item.

Labeled — Humans often need to manually label data to help train ML software to detect negative and positive cases.

“Machine learning algorithms may be the fun, sexy part — everyone wants to crash that party — but improving the data is where you usually get the greatest payoff.”