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We were just having this discussion around the Postman fundraise - various people saying "its just a GUI around Curl!!!" and being all offended at the raise's p

We were just having this discussion around the Postman fundraise - various people saying "its just a GUI around Curl!!!" and being all offended at the raise's price tag. There's so much more that goes into building an actual business.

jacobr1 5y ago
Also folks making similar comments are missing that funding is about the future of the product/business, not just scaling growth (though you do see with later stage funding). Something like Postman is a bet on enterprise tooling for APIs, both building and integrating with them. Looks like Postman has gone beyond their chrome extension, and leveraged that to add more a bunch more features. But even if all that was easy enough to build, the investment is really about the trend and the business ability to capitalize on the trend. VC investment is always more forward-looking than the current product state.
- tofuahdude 5y ago
  For sure. Valuation of a VC raise !== technical complexity. Easy to conflate from an engineer's seat, I guess.
ozim 5y ago
Well yeah I could do Postman in the weekend. Really I hate Postman and I have it on my todo list. I also try not to use it unless someone sends me his Postman collection. Thing is, I could do that for myself and I would be the only user and I would never turn it into a company. Because what devs usually say they could do that product in the weekend - but usable only for themselves. While turning software package into successful product that a lot of people would use is totally different story. Just like playing piano for your friends on the weekend or guitar by the fire that takes maybe couple weeks of training. To become a pop-star well that is just different pair of shoes.
- tofuahdude 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. It's just that many times these comments are on threads about the fundraise itself. "Why is Postman worth $B when I could build that in a weekend?" is completely missing what it takes to build a business.

jacobr1 5y ago

Also folks making similar comments are missing that funding is about the future of the product/business, not just scaling growth (though you do see with later stage funding). Something like Postman is a bet on enterprise tooling for APIs, both building and integrating with them. Looks like Postman has gone beyond their chrome extension, and leveraged that to add more a bunch more features. But even if all that was easy enough to build, the investment is really about the trend and the business ability to capitalize on the trend. VC investment is always more forward-looking than the current product state.

tofuahdude 5y ago
For sure. Valuation of a VC raise !== technical complexity. Easy to conflate from an engineer's seat, I guess.

ozim 5y ago

Well yeah I could do Postman in the weekend. Really I hate Postman and I have it on my todo list. I also try not to use it unless someone sends me his Postman collection. Thing is, I could do that for myself and I would be the only user and I would never turn it into a company. Because what devs usually say they could do that product in the weekend - but usable only for themselves. While turning software package into successful product that a lot of people would use is totally different story. Just like playing piano for your friends on the weekend or guitar by the fire that takes maybe couple weeks of training. To become a pop-star well that is just different pair of shoes.

tofuahdude 5y ago
Yeah, I agree. It's just that many times these comments are on threads about the fundraise itself. "Why is Postman worth $B when I could build that in a weekend?" is completely missing what it takes to build a business.