We explored the journey of a small company called FactGem as they transitioned to Neo4j, a native graph database. They initially started with relational databases but realized their limitations and moved on to explore other options like XML databases and Resource Description Framework (RDF). However, RDF's verbosity and performance issues led them to consider alternative solutions. The team eventually found Neo4j, which offered scalability, ease of use, and a powerful graph database that enabled them to build new things quickly. They learned various best practices for using Neo4j, including understanding their strengths, querying techniques, data modeling, optimizing performance, communicating with the community, and keeping code in their toolbox. These lessons helped them navigate the complexities of graph databases and achieve success with Neo4j.