Instinct vs Data

Sometimes having a strong gut instinct can be a blessing and sometimes not.

I'm speaking in the context of my work at my mobile startup that I'm involved with.  I can envision where we want to go as a company, and the direction we need to take, but I feel that our startup sometimes moves slower in getting there, than a behemoth Fortune 500 company.  I'm just not sure how to address this personally.  

I think it boils down to how analytical a company culture is.  In our case, extremely data driven!  They want data data data data data  data for everything before coming to any notion of solution, and I struggle with this.  Perhaps it's my gut instinct I have with regards to finding answers, but this concept of analyzing everything really tests my patience.  I always feel like we could save a lot of energy and effort on what I'd define as analysis paralysis, and just get to the point of trying of the solutions led by the gut.

An example:

Sometimes I'm sitting in our meetings, feeling like bursting out waving my hand, jumping up and down, just thinking, "please listen to me".  I know my gut, and its right on.  And during that feeling of anxiety,  I somehow get so bottled up- feeling that my "gut" opinion is not wanted, nor respected.  

I know it's not personal, because people generally like me.  But I also feel that people in this work culture, don't necessarily care about things unless there is concrete data to back up an instinct.  I could do that, but struggle with the rationale for spending valuable energy on gathering data (okay, I'll be honest, "useless data") that will eventually get to results that my gut already tells me.  And when forced to go down the path of data gathering, which could take weeks, if not months, my motivation dwindles down even more, knowing how much precious time will be lost.

They say the turtle always wins the race, but isn't there some value in being first to market-- and moving expeditiously fast, especially as the window of opportunity for a new product, is tiny, in this technology landscape.

AAAARGH! I feel like screaming-- And I don't know what to do.  Any thoughts would be welcome.

Raj