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I've seen so many of these, and I think they should all be very successful but the only time I've seen them work is when they are wrapped in a service/consultin

I've seen so many of these, and I think they should all be very successful but the only time I've seen them work is when they are wrapped in a service/consulting organization. The reasons for this may be: 1. Even when the coding is free, the problem understanding part is not 2. The amount of work to be done to implement a new process or system is non-trivial, but temporary, so you need temporary help. 3. Probably another 3-5 reasons I haven't thought of. In any case, it seems you would have to pitch your solution to a consulting firm. If you get one of the top 5, you're golden. However, they might prefer the real expensive enterprisy solutions. You're better of pitching to larger but lightweight organizations. One way to do that is have training around learning typical client processes, typical solutions, and how to implement them. Or how to recognize issues. (Making this up: look at the balance sheet, if inventory is building up, turnover is low. You want a process to push back the order time and link it to sales.)

skellystudios 6y ago
So #1 is exactly the reason we're letting you build on top of your spreadsheet. People seem to be able to design systems pretty well using just Airtable or Google Sheets – they're just lacking some pretty important abilities (UI, logins, security) to make them work the way they want.
- kfk 6y ago
  They might be able to build systems for small teams but they can't scale them to organizations. These "apps" get stuck soon on change management, data, integrations, etc.. You might make money on short term as people get excited building apps, but long term this approach is likely to disappoint.
  - skellystudios 6y ago
    This is actually part of the problem we're most excited to solve. Both me and my cofounder come from the Salesforce ecosystem, where they've done some of that really well, and some of that really badly. I agree, all of these things are a prerequisite to be able to truly scale across an org, and we're definitely not there yet, but it's firmly in our sights.
    - kfk 6y ago
      Well I was going to say that Salesforce is a great example of something that sold well initially but it has mostly been a disappointment. Salesforce has been telling managers that "apps" are the way to go while the real value driver of sales funnels is data. Sales funnel can be optimized only if you blend data across the various stages from lead to revenue. I don't think you can solve the issues of organizational "digitalization" by starting with apps, it's data and integrations, apps are a tiny wrapper around a well organized and managed data ecosystem.
- bikamonki 6y ago
  Say I have a Google Sheet with customer data. One column is status. When I log a new customer status is new. When I close a deal I want to change to status active, but: 1. I do not want to type "active", I want to select it from some options. 2. I want to check that customer has paid, so I need to hook this to a payments sheet or service. 3. I want to validate all input is valid before activating a customer, for example, I need a scanned image of a document to have been uploaded. 4. If all is good, I want to change the customer to active, but when I do it: 5. I want to create a log so I know when and who sold this account, so I can later automate sales commissions. 6. I want to send an email to the new customer, including login credentials. 7. Things I have not yet imagined but will surely pop when my business grows. Can I do all this with Stacker? Merely using a couple of Google Sheets as my back-end DB?
woah 6y ago
Long ago I did Wordpress sites, and I learned that no matter how nice of an admin interface I made to let the client modify their own site, they would always call us to change even the tiniest things.
- seibelj 6y ago
  I trade my software skills to my personal trainer for free workout sessions, and it's so true. He isn't a dumb guy, he's young and runs his own socials, but makes me do every single text change and minor tweak to his Squarespace site. It's worth it for some free sessions but it would be a lot faster turnaround if he just learned to do it himself.
  - wintermutestwin 6y ago
    Considering that Squarespace doesn't have backup/restore functionality (!!!!), maybe it is wise for him to have you just "make it so."
    - sitkack 6y ago
      Are you kidding? One of the single most useful features that make computers useful, restoring from a bad state, is missing from Squarespace. I am embarrassed for them. > Copy and paste text to another location, like a text document or a Google Doc. Wow.
  - rgoulter 6y ago
    I'd say there are probably two things your trainer can't currently do, that you can. (Of course, if your trainer was interested and put in the effort, he probably could). One is: have a good intuition/model for what will need to be changed. (What will need to be changed and what effect that might have). Another is: confidence that he'll be able to resolve any problem he might get into. (That's not even considering that programming, I think, gets an aura of nerdy/hard, when a lot of it is very accessible).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
robertlagrant 6y ago
> If you get one of the top 5, you're golden. However, they might prefer the real expensive enterprisy solutions. This can be mitigated, as if Stacker offer the top 5 a massive licence discount compared to big enterprisey tools, so they're making more profit on the same result, then they'll pick it. And for the big enterprisey solutions that are built in an old, expensive way, they won't be able to compete on price for long, which could be interesting.
- omarhaneef 6y ago
  That is an interesting approach. Not to be overly cynical, but part of the appeal of a large expensive system that "everyone" uses is that you feel better writing that large check. "Nobody gets fired for hiring IBM."
mediaman 6y ago
They already are very successful, and it doesn't require a consulting organization. Quickbase, for example, was recently sold for $1bn, and is one of the category leaders, with revenue over $100m. Their whole model is no-code business process development. For some reason, Valley types never mention Quickbase in the market, and only think Airtable et al created it, even though QB is the behemoth.
- jdeibele 6y ago
  Their lowest price is $500/month billed annually. So it's $6000 day one. And that's the cheap plan - the other two are "contact us for a custom quote". https://www.quickbase.com/plans-and-pricing https://www.quickbase.com/plans-and-pricing Airtable (and Stacker) at least let you build for free, then upgrade to monthly accounts at launch. Not affiliated with any of them.

skellystudios 6y ago

So #1 is exactly the reason we're letting you build on top of your spreadsheet. People seem to be able to design systems pretty well using just Airtable or Google Sheets – they're just lacking some pretty important abilities (UI, logins, security) to make them work the way they want.

kfk 6y ago
They might be able to build systems for small teams but they can't scale them to organizations. These "apps" get stuck soon on change management, data, integrations, etc.. You might make money on short term as people get excited building apps, but long term this approach is likely to disappoint.
- skellystudios 6y ago
  This is actually part of the problem we're most excited to solve. Both me and my cofounder come from the Salesforce ecosystem, where they've done some of that really well, and some of that really badly. I agree, all of these things are a prerequisite to be able to truly scale across an org, and we're definitely not there yet, but it's firmly in our sights.
  - kfk 6y ago
    Well I was going to say that Salesforce is a great example of something that sold well initially but it has mostly been a disappointment. Salesforce has been telling managers that "apps" are the way to go while the real value driver of sales funnels is data. Sales funnel can be optimized only if you blend data across the various stages from lead to revenue. I don't think you can solve the issues of organizational "digitalization" by starting with apps, it's data and integrations, apps are a tiny wrapper around a well organized and managed data ecosystem.
bikamonki 6y ago
Say I have a Google Sheet with customer data. One column is status. When I log a new customer status is new. When I close a deal I want to change to status active, but: 1. I do not want to type "active", I want to select it from some options. 2. I want to check that customer has paid, so I need to hook this to a payments sheet or service. 3. I want to validate all input is valid before activating a customer, for example, I need a scanned image of a document to have been uploaded. 4. If all is good, I want to change the customer to active, but when I do it: 5. I want to create a log so I know when and who sold this account, so I can later automate sales commissions. 6. I want to send an email to the new customer, including login credentials. 7. Things I have not yet imagined but will surely pop when my business grows. Can I do all this with Stacker? Merely using a couple of Google Sheets as my back-end DB?

woah 6y ago

Long ago I did Wordpress sites, and I learned that no matter how nice of an admin interface I made to let the client modify their own site, they would always call us to change even the tiniest things.

seibelj 6y ago
I trade my software skills to my personal trainer for free workout sessions, and it's so true. He isn't a dumb guy, he's young and runs his own socials, but makes me do every single text change and minor tweak to his Squarespace site. It's worth it for some free sessions but it would be a lot faster turnaround if he just learned to do it himself.
- wintermutestwin 6y ago
  Considering that Squarespace doesn't have backup/restore functionality (!!!!), maybe it is wise for him to have you just "make it so."
  - sitkack 6y ago
    Are you kidding? One of the single most useful features that make computers useful, restoring from a bad state, is missing from Squarespace. I am embarrassed for them. > Copy and paste text to another location, like a text document or a Google Doc. Wow.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  I'd say there are probably two things your trainer can't currently do, that you can. (Of course, if your trainer was interested and put in the effort, he probably could). One is: have a good intuition/model for what will need to be changed. (What will need to be changed and what effect that might have). Another is: confidence that he'll be able to resolve any problem he might get into. (That's not even considering that programming, I think, gets an aura of nerdy/hard, when a lot of it is very accessible).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

robertlagrant 6y ago

> If you get one of the top 5, you're golden. However, they might prefer the real expensive enterprisy solutions. This can be mitigated, as if Stacker offer the top 5 a massive licence discount compared to big enterprisey tools, so they're making more profit on the same result, then they'll pick it. And for the big enterprisey solutions that are built in an old, expensive way, they won't be able to compete on price for long, which could be interesting.

omarhaneef 6y ago
That is an interesting approach. Not to be overly cynical, but part of the appeal of a large expensive system that "everyone" uses is that you feel better writing that large check. "Nobody gets fired for hiring IBM."

mediaman 6y ago

They already are very successful, and it doesn't require a consulting organization. Quickbase, for example, was recently sold for $1bn, and is one of the category leaders, with revenue over $100m. Their whole model is no-code business process development. For some reason, Valley types never mention Quickbase in the market, and only think Airtable et al created it, even though QB is the behemoth.

jdeibele 6y ago
Their lowest price is $500/month billed annually. So it's $6000 day one. And that's the cheap plan - the other two are "contact us for a custom quote". https://www.quickbase.com/plans-and-pricing https://www.quickbase.com/plans-and-pricing Airtable (and Stacker) at least let you build for free, then upgrade to monthly accounts at launch. Not affiliated with any of them.