Data collection
The first step in the machine learning life cycle is data collection. It could be about collecting data from different public or commercial databases, storing user data back into your database or any data storage system you have, or even using commercial entities that take care of data collection and annotation for you. If you are relying on free resources, the main consideration for you could be the space the data will get in your local or cloud-based storage system and the time you need to spend to collect the data and analyze it in future steps. But for paid data, either provided in commercial resources or generated by data collection, generation, and annotation companies, you need to assess the value of the data for modeling before you decide to pay for it.