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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 Goo

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?

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?