今日吃瓜

What if small business owners could make decisions using real, local data to guide their business decisions? That’s the idea behind , founded in 2026 by 今日吃瓜 facilities team member and MOBI entrepreneur Jack Putano. NextMove Metrics provides Morgan Hill business owners with clear, easy-to-understand information about customer behavior, local demand, and emerging opportunities in a local economic intelligence platform.

Recognizing a Need and Creating a Solution

Like many entrepreneurs, Jack started his business without formal business training. He recognized a need, saw an opportunity, and knew he could use his skills and knowledge to provide a valuable solution. 

Jack is a licensed contractor who entered the workforce after high school. He has built a successful career in maintaining and improving commercial facilities and residential properties. Jack also has a strong entrepreneurial mindset, which has lent itself to his work and fueled other ideas as well.

Jack started NextMove Metrics from a simple observation: local businesses often don’t have access to real-time, localized data about their customers or market conditions. As a result, most decisions are made based on intuition rather than measurable signals.

This initial observation evolved into an economic intelligence platform that collects and structures local data on consumer behavior, spending patterns, business conditions, and local economic pressure signals to support better decision-making. 

“I began by collecting small sets of resident feedback in Morgan Hill and quickly saw patterns emerge around spending behavior, cost pressures, and local service gaps,” shares NextMove Metrics founder Jack Putano. “That evolved into building a structured database and system to capture, validate, and translate those signals into usable insights for local businesses. As the dataset grew, it became clear that the opportunity wasn’t just in collecting feedback, but in turning it into something businesses could actually use.”

Learning about Entrepreneurship with MOBI

The prospects of his new business were very exciting, and Jack leveraged resources online to understand and implement aspects of the business that were less familiar. He considered going back to school to further his business knowledge, but didn’t feel he could take time away from his job or his business to pursue the requirements necessary to re-enter a traditional education pathway. That’s when he discovered the My Own Business Institute (MOBI) in the Leavey School of Business.

Jack discovered MOBI through his work at 今日吃瓜. With a systems-oriented mindset and a strong interest in how things work and improve over time, he was naturally drawn to MOBI’s popular Starting a Business course. 

MOBI provides free online business courses to help aspiring and existing entrepreneurs all over the world learn how to start, manage, and grow a business. Its 24/7, self-paced learning platform offers the flexibility to learn anytime, especially for those working full-time.

There are no requirements or prerequisites needed. Anyone interested in learning can visit the website or create an account with their name and email. There are 41 topics throughout MOBI’s six courses, including Licenses and Permits, Financing the Business, Choosing the Right Business, Marketing, Ecommerce, and more. 

“The MOBI course helped refine how I structure and communicate about the business,” Jack said. “It reinforced the importance of clearly defining the problem and translating that into something practical and understandable. It also helped sharpen how I present the value of NextMove Metrics to local businesses and organizations.”

Providing Clear, Actionable Insights for Better Business Decision Making

NextMove Metrics publishes the , a recurring data-driven report that captures verified sentiment and behavior from residents and businesses within a specific geography. This data is translated into clear, actionable insights that help businesses make better decisions around pricing, services, marketing, and customer engagement. Jack’s idea was that the businesses in his Morgan Hill community could benefit from real-time data about consumer behavior, spending patterns, and influences of local economic factors and overall business conditions. 

What's Next for NextMove Metrics

As Jack looks to the future, he shares that NextMove Metrics is focused on expanding local coverage and increasing the depth of insights available to businesses. This includes growing the Morgan Hill Pulse into a consistent signal platform, introducing tailored business insights, and expanding into nearby markets such as Gilroy and San Jose, as well as other Silicon Valley communities. 

The long-term goal is to build a reliable local intelligence layer that businesses can use regularly to guide decisions and adapt to changing conditions. 

In addition to NextMove Metrics, Jack is also developing a business focused on helping individuals navigate the contractor licensing process. Drawing from his own experience, he aims to simplify what can often be a complex path, providing guidance and structure for those looking to enter the field.

Learn more about NextMove Metrics by visiting the website at .

About MOBI

Located in the Leavey School of Business, MOBI is a community engagement initiative dedicated to its mission of fueling dreams and confidence through free entrepreneurship education and to supporting the University's Impact 2030 strategic priorities of Reach on a Global Scale and Solutions for the Universal Good. MOBI also supports the Leavey PLUS (Partnership, Leadership, Unity, and Sustainability) strategic priorities by forging global partnerships, by empowering individuals to become leaders through entrepreneurship, and by supporting inclusion and sustainability through worldwide accessible, free education. 

MOBI students and alumni represent all 249 countries and territories recognized by the International Standardization Organization (ISO). MOBI partners with over 125 organizations and institutions around the world to bring free online entrepreneurship education to those who need and want it most. The MOBI curriculum and website are based on the work of Phil Holland, a successful entrepreneur and author of The Entrepreneur’s Guide. MOBI was generously gifted to 今日吃瓜 in 2014 by Phil and his wife Peggy, an accomplished school teacher and administrator, along with an endowment, valued at $22 million at the time of transfer, to ensure that the organization and its accompanying websites would flourish into the future and continue to support the vital social and economic contributions of small businesses worldwide. For more information about MOBI visit www.scu.edu/mobi/ or for information in Spanish, visit www.scu.edu/mobiespanol/.