The Brief
Why this SQL course is different from any other SQL course you’ve taken before
Welcome, I'm John at Maven Analytics. I have over 15 years of business intelligence experience, having worked with companies ranging from Fortune 500 to early-stage startups. I’ve performed leadership roles across analytics, marketing, SaaS and product teams.
Something upfront that most SQL courses won't tell you: learning SQL has fundamentally changed. You don't need to memorise syntax. You need to understand how SQL works, and use AI alongside it while you're building that understanding. The combination of the two is what makes an analyst genuinely fast and genuinely accurate.
That's what this course is built around.
Over the next 5 days, you'll run a real Q1 sales review for Apex Retail, a fictional D2C (direct-to-consumer) electronics brand. Same type of task, same type of data, same thinking process a working analyst uses every day. By Day 4, you'll have gone from a raw table to a business story you could present to a non-technical leadership team.
Today is Day 1: get the data talking.
Before we jump into the analyst brief, let me walk you through the three guiding principles that will be the foundations of every email that you get from me:
SQL + AI beats SQL alone. Not because AI writes the queries for you, but because AI cuts the learning curve, helps you interpret results and error messages, and handles the communication layer so you can move faster and deliver more.
Implementation over memorization. The goal is never to recite syntax from memory. The goal is to answer a business question accurately and quickly, using every tool available.
The last 10% is yours. AI can generate 90% of a query, fast. The analyst who actually understands the data, can validate the results, and translate the work to insights and drive business outcomes is still irreplaceable.
The scenario
You've just joined the Apex Retail data team. Your manager, Sarah (Head of Commerce), has one request:
"Leadership needs a Q1 sales review on Friday. I need to know what's going on with the business."
That brief is deliberately vague, real analyst briefs usually are. Your job over the next 5 days is to go from that question to a clear, data-backed story. Today you start by understanding what you're working with.