14 ms·

One year as a solo dev building open-source data tools without funding

589 points by revorad 4y ago

ushakov 4y ago
> They weren't a fan of me being a solo founder and they felt the usage wasn't high enough i don't understand the logic here why would you need YC if you have found a co-founder and have some usage already? can't you just start making money?
- alex_suzuki 4y ago
  Solo founder means bus factor is high. You don’t even have to die. Having a co-founder increases the chances of you being in it for the long run. But having a co-founder can pose a whole set of problems itself…
  - cube00 4y ago
    I would have thought co-founders are more problematic because they need to agree on everything but it sounds like a solo founder is an overall negative which I found surprising.
- dvt 4y ago
  > why would you need YC if you have found a co-founder and have some usage already? can't you just start making money? YC is primarily looking to invest in unicorns that have returns in the 100x-1000x range. Even if you're "making money," you might just be a lifestyle business (e.g. selling custom art on Etsy) or a small business (e.g. family-run bike shop). And while both might be profitable (the owners might even be worth 7+ figures), neither of these have any realistic chance of becoming the next Amazon.
mbrodersen 4y ago
It is a bit of a misunderstanding to say that the work hasn’t been funded. It has been funded by lost earnings. If the developer instead could have made (say) $100k working on something else, then the funding was $100k. The same way that not selling a car you have been given for free cost you the money you could otherwise have made selling the car.
donkeyd 4y ago
DSQ seems pretty interesting. I don't have a use for it right now, but I'm sure it's something that'll be useful in the future!
ilikerashers 4y ago
Really impressive that you kept going through all those peaks and troughs. While not financially rewarding, it must have been great exercise for your resilience!
badpun 4y ago
> How do you query this data or join or filter across such disparate sources? The only two solutions today are to put ALL data into a warehouse or to write custom scripts. Isn't this whole problem space already addressed by a bunch of multi-source query engines (falling under the buzzword "Data Virtualization"?)
eatonphil 4y ago
Hey this is my story! It's been a genuinely fun year. Looking forward to doing better next time. Datastation/dsq are in a great spot and I'm looking forward to them continuing to grow. Happy for your suggestions and flames.
- ushakov 4y ago
  DataStation looks very promising! i'd like to suggest you to also build a business else, you'll end up like countless of other startups and open-source projects that existed for a brief moment but failed due to not making any money try working on both your business offer and your software offer in tandem your software product should serve your business, not the other way around this is the approach i'm using right now for Typosaur (.com)
- manceraio 4y ago
  It looks like your projects resonate with people, and more important, you are capable of putting them in front of many eyes. Which is even harder than writing code. For that reason, don't seek the validation of VCs and figure out a business around it. Let your customers be your VCs. Congratulations on your work :)
- tmcw 4y ago
  Really liked the post! I really admire the attitude & intention that's there – at least from an outside perspective it seems like you've made the most of the experience and sort of had fun with it. Hope to take some inspiration from that.
- svnt 4y ago
  You just need (to become, to partner with) a business person. If you’re determined to be CEO get a CEO mentor and an early sales VP who can do all the interpersonal stuff you find uncomfortable. If you want to stay in product/dev find a cofounder to be CEO. They are late so cofounder doesn’t necessarily mean 50/50 here. Founder vest. It’s evident your story needs tuning as “I had a hard time paginating results” is not the real story here nor is it very compelling and just reinforces initial uninformed opinion in the space that you’re only scratching an itch that isn’t market-validated. What are other people doing with your product? That is the story. This feels like it could be a really big thing.
tosh 4y ago
Inspiring read, congratulations on the progress and thanks for the write-up.
cube2222 4y ago
Hey, congrats on the journey! Especially on the community building aspect, it's really impressive that you've been able to spark so many communities on various platforms (Reddit, GitHub, Discord, etc.)! On a more technical note, since dsq is based on the "load it into SQLite and query it from there" architecture, have you considered integrating with the plugin ecosystems of other existing projects based on that same architecture, like Datasette[0]? It seems like a way to add a lot of value to your tools without much work. Just curious, cause I'm thinking about doing something similar for OctoSQL[1] (write an adapter for the rich library of plugins Steampipe[2] has, as they have a similar gRPC plugin-based architecture as OctoSQL), for the reasons I listed above. On a more commercial note, overall I think tools like this are very hard to monetize, because right now they're just a fairly niche use case, between - as you mentioned - full blown data analytics platforms and observability query systems, as well as standard unix tools. Especially since if you need the analytics a lot, you'll probably have time to integrate it into your preferred analytics solution (like BigQuery). Do you have any thoughts on that? [0]:https://datasette.io https://datasette.io [1]:https://github.com/cube2222/octosql https://github.com/cube2222/octosql [2]:https://steampipe.io https://steampipe.io
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Hey Kuba! > Especially on the community building aspect, it's really impressive that you've been able to spark so many communities on various platforms (Reddit, GitHub, Discord, etc.)! Yeah it's been so cool to see so many people come together, hobbyists and professionals. > On a more technical note, since dsq is based on the "load it into SQLite and query it from there" architecture, have you considered integrating with the plugin ecosystems of other existing projects based on that same architecture, like Datasette[0]? It seems like a way to add a lot of value to your tools without much work. Interesting idea! I haven't looked into Datasette too much. And I haven't thought about plugins too much either. The most I've done is extend the SQLite standard library [0] and I hope to continue growing that. I'd be curious to hear what specifically people like from Datasette they'd like to see in dsq. > On a more commercial note, overall I think tools like this are very hard to monetize, because right now they're just a fairly niche use case, between - as you mentioned - full blown data analytics platforms and observability query systems, as well as standard unix tools. Especially since if you need the analytics a lot, you'll probably have time to integrate it into your preferred analytics solution (like BigQuery). Do you have any thoughts on that? My idea was always to focus on smaller and less mature organizations, probably ones that have been around for 10+ years. They aren't using BigQuery, they prefer to host everything themselves, and they don't yet realize there are tools like DataStation that they can easily run to make analytics easier. I've worked at a bunch of companies like this so I know the market exists. Actually I have been surprised how many people outside of this market showed up in the DataStation community. I've seen Googlers, MS-ers, modern startups, data science teams show up interested in DataStation compared to what they're already using. For me it's just been a matter of time (and funding) to build out the product to serve these communities commercially as a SaaS or enterprise product. [0] https://github.com/multiprocessio/go-sqlite3-stdlib https://github.com/multiprocessio/go-sqlite3-stdlib
jensneuse 4y ago
Thanks for this writeup, I can relate 100%, especially the part on the supportive spouse. I've built WunderGraph (https://wundergraph.com/ https://wundergraph.com/) as a solo-dev for multiple years until I reached a similar point like you. It's weird to say, but my wife kind of accepted that I'd work on weekends between 1-3 pm when the kids sleep. What helped me get out of this "solo-time-drain-thing" was to find the right Co-Founders to help me. I've found a really nice guy to help me with Marketing, and another one who helped me develop the Product. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, find a team." I hope you can find some way of financing so that you can push through this wall. For me, it was working a full time job and building WunderGraph at night and on the weekends, but it's making you age quickly. I wish you the best for your future.
- ushakov 4y ago
  > working a full time job and building WunderGraph at night and on the weekends this is actually a terrible advice, although i'm glad it worked out for you! this type of side-hustling can quickly turn into losing your startup or your job (or both) better approach is to save some money, leave for a year and become profitable from day 1 profitability will decrease your chances of failure dramatically
  - jensneuse 4y ago
    I actually lost my job. I'd also advise against replicating what I did, but it was my only option really. I'm not born rich, single income dad, paying off the house. I wasn't able to afford to "leave for a year". It's also a timing thing. The right time to do WunderGraph is now, not in two years. So I had to decide to give up a dream or work through this and risk my job. Luckily, I've found the right people to help me and first customers at exactly the right time. But trust me, WunderGraph was at tables-takes for a long time.
    - heisenbit 4y ago
      This is really the one challenge in Germany: High fixed costs and high taxes making it hard to sock away seed money yourself.
yayr 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this. Regarding funding - I think this is a very crowded space and it is hard to see, how data station will get 10x better than other toolings. E.g. on the self-service side there are solutions like Alteryx, that are progressing quite quickly. On the dev oriented side e.g. for automated productive integrations you have various toolings available e.g. in the could platforms. Yes, they all cost money, but they deliver also value. There will be a niche certainly for this tool somehow, but I think this path needs to be approached together with customers. So if you find someone who is willing to pay $$$ for a certain addition to the tool, you'll have some light into the direction this could head to be self-sustaining.
- infinite8s 4y ago
  Alteryx is quite pricy though - about 5k/seat for the designer.
noduerme 4y ago
First code in Brython?! I'd never even heard of that but wow, that looks like a monstrous unholy way to write a GUI.
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Just the panel eval implementation for Python code panels, not the actual app.
Fiahil 4y ago
> How do you query this data or join or filter across such disparate sources? The only two solutions today are to put ALL data into a warehouse or to write custom scripts. The problem with warehouses are that they are expensive and that the ETL process for every new database is expensive too. > Tons and tons of companies are trying to solve this. You'll get lost among all the vendors trying to capitalize on the “Modern Data Stack”. They're expensive. Yes, and Yes. However I see a path for a new kind of warehouse that isn't a "Git for Data" or a Databricks' product. "Topics" (Kafka terminology) containing versioned datasets could help organise and discover what is available in a given repo. The Data versioning would help ensuring reproducibility of any AI pipeline consuming those, because artefacts would be kept unaltered "forever". And finally, availability would be supported by a simple set of read-only replicas. Your best alternative today consist of stuffing a blob storage with parquet files, and giving write access to a proxy (or to everyone, if you want to live dangerously). Where are append-only semantics ? Conflict-free artefact creation with concurrent reads ? There is massive opportunities here, it's almost exciting ! PS : > I'm particularly interested in ending up at a database or analytics company. So if you're a database or analytics company hiring managers or developers, feel free to message me! I see you in the thread, so does a consulting company with a massive Data Science arm is of any interest to you ? :)
- eatonphil 4y ago
  > I see you in the thread, so does a consulting company with a massive Data Science arm is of any interest to you ? :) ha, maybe! You have my email.
- cube2222 4y ago
  I think Pachyderm[0] is exactly what you're describing. [0]:https://www.pachyderm.com https://www.pachyderm.com
  - Fiahil 4y ago
    We used pachyderm before MLOps was even a thing, sadly, back then they tried to solve everything at once while failing with the most basic needs. If your data versioning "Utilizes a Git-like structure that enables effective team collaboration through commits, branches and rollbacks", then it means you can only consume one version at a time in your pipeline. This is, unfortunately, a fatal flaw. Especially when working with time series !
raunometsa 4y ago
Plausible comes into my mind: how Uku found his co-founder in marketing and how things took off from there. They're now at $1M ARR: https://microfounder.com/blog/cofounder-in-marketing https://microfounder.com/blog/cofounder-in-marketing (also open-source btw)
yieldcrv 4y ago
Pursued funding unsuccessfully, zero patrons, only reason its still open source is because they couldnt monetize with venture capital, got lucky in getting internet points, now interviewing for a job Exactly why you dont do this too Saved you some time
- eatonphil 4y ago
  I mean it's not a success story but it was fun and I've got cooler interviews lined up than I have ever had before, got to speak with VCs for the first time, learned a ton, and got out of it an app I've wanted for years. :) I would actually recommend this sort of sabbatical if you can afford it and were in a similar situation as I was, basically.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing it! These are great parts of a tech career
- benibela 4y ago
  Story of my life
ThePhysicist 4y ago
Advice regarding VCs: Don't ever talk to them if they randomly approach you saying they "really like what you're doing". They will gladly sent an associate to talk with you about your business in the greatest detail and ask you to share presentations, demos and metrics. Anything you give them will then get passed along to their own portfolio companies in your space. So don't feel flattered when they feign interest in your company, they're mostly just doing reconnaissance. Ignore it as chances are you're feeding them information they'll use to kill your company. If you're really interested in VC funding you should proactively approach VCs (ideally using introductions by your network) that seem suitable. And you should check beforehand that they don't fund your main competitor.
- streetcat1 4y ago
  The markets are huge (I dare to say endless). Nobody is getting killed.
- james_impliu 4y ago
  Had this happen (random outreach). Led to a series A. Respectfully disagree - I don't think competitors copying is a significant risk early on, compared to running out of money whilst trying to hit product market fit.
  - ThePhysicist 4y ago
    Fair point, maybe I formulated that a bit drastically, though I have seen this kind of reconnaissance increase quite a bit recently, so maybe I'm just fed up with it.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    based on your anecdote against hundreds of thousands of founders getting spied on. I've seen it happen. Basically if somebody wants to invest ask them: $ and t+ If they try to dodge or make up excuses, MOVE ON. IF they say if you give me A,B,C and then we can invest, ask them to put them in writing and put an exit fee. If they do not invest, they give you 1% of the proposed amount. Somebody who is serious and has the balls won't waste time. Unfortunately rare. I've wasted a two years of my youth because a VC on HN reached out to me, who ultimately just used my product/coding services. Any dumb fuck can be a VC if they can raise cheap capital. Remember, there is very small group of VCs that know what they are doing. The rest are just in the game to spray and see what sticks on the wall (most of them do not make it during a downturn)
streetcat1 4y ago
If you can, it is always better to go full time. If you hourly rate is 150$ (in the market), and you can work 300H a month (including weekend) (It should be 400 hours - 13 hours a day). Than you are basically making around 70-100K a month (in value), but paying only 4K (in cash, your living expenses). Of course, if you are 2X, 3X , 4X engineer , you are basically making 300K a month for 4K cost.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  I'm not sure this makes much sense. If you work for a large corporation you can easily make 100K+ a year and work a very reasonable 40 hours or less a week and live off of 4K a month. Unless you're actually realizing those gains and earning 300K a month, you are not "basically making 300K a month for 4K cost". You are making 0 dollars a month for 4K cost. Further, if you think that it will pay you back in full in the future (instead of making the money right away), you will have to invent a wildly successful product and/or customer base to backfill the pay for all the previous hours worked. Realistically, you'll probably make nothing for your first year unless you start with a plan to secure funding. You'll also bust your ass for a year while losing money in the hopes of a reward in the future. I know they say time is money, but it's not money the way you seem to be equating it here haha.
- dahart 4y ago
  You are saying never start a startup? If you don’t want to take a risk on a startup, you’re much better off taking a salary job than trying to get a high hourly contracting rate. Strange analysis, these numbers mostly don’t add up. People contracting at an hourly rate almost never get constant consistent work, otherwise you’d get hired on a salary. You have to spend half your time looking for work, and you’re not accounting for that at all. At 400 hours/month, you are suggesting working 90 hours per week for 365 days per year. Having worked this many hours before for stretches, I know first hand this is a recipe for complete and total burnout and depression within a few months. And even 90 hours per week at $150 per hour doesn’t add up to 70k/month, it’s 60k/month. 2x/3x engineer is usually referring to productivity, but not pay. You generally can’t increase your pay by being more productive. Pay scales that you’re talking about ($300/hr, $450/hr, $600/hr) are extremely rare in engineering and come only with niche software markets. Almost nobody is making hourly rates like that, there’s nothing basic about it, this is an unrealistic goal.
rubenfiszel 4y ago
Your story is very inspiring and it mirrors closely my experience with building windmill.dev as a solo founder, an OSS project for multi-step automation from minimal scripts. I got lucky enough to get into YC this batch and if this is of any interest to you, we could really use someone with your experience in the founding team. Shoot me an email if of any interest: ruben@windmill.dev
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Actually it was because of your post a month ago getting in that made me apply to YC in the first place. Nice work yourself. :)
froggertoaster 4y ago
Is it bad that the first metric the author shares is a borderline vanity metric (Github stars)?
- dt3ft 4y ago
  I reacted to this as well. I hope he/she gets real value for the work they put in. Having worked as a developer and consumer of open source work (for huge finance institutions), it pains me to see how devs pour their souls into open source projects, and consumers (our bosses) don’t even know or care who wrote the code everyone is using.
  - froggertoaster 4y ago
    Precisely my concern.
- eatonphil 4y ago
  The way I think about it is it's about showing growth by any means. When you're starting from nothing you talk about anything you can. Only in the last few months have I been able to switch from focusing on Github stars in talking to VCs to talking about actual usage by humans. For the sake of the article though it's a hook I figured might encourage folks to keep reading. :)
- dahart 4y ago
  No, it’s not bad, it’s good. Keep in mind the realistic alternative in practice is number of users paying for a yearly subscription. Which would you rather see more often as an engagement metric - subscription plans, or open source users? It would be a sign of vitality for the open source community if github stars were a metric that VCs sought more often. All metrics for pre-seed startups are based on popularity, that’s what VCs ask for: indicators that people want to use your product, whether it’s monthly active users, monthly recurring revenue, or github stars. When someone is trying to build it via open source rather than a subscription model, github stars might be the best, or even only available way to track engagement reliably. Also, part of the story was about how long it took to reach a certain number of stars, and they compared it to other projects that got as much engagement more quickly.
itake 4y ago
Is it possible to do more SQL over CSV in the browser? I'd love a simple browser app that I could drop a CSV file into and write SQL against. Right now I use `j`, but its a bit clunky.
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Yeah! app.datastation.multiprocess.io supports this! Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LEV3ZeQWU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LEV3ZeQWU&feature=youtu.be
  - itake 4y ago
    Ooo! that is cool. The UX took a second to get used to, but it meets my needs. Does this work with larger datasets (10gb+)? Does it upload the data to a server?
    - eatonphil 4y ago
      It's purely in-browser/in-memory. So no this version won't work for large datasets. The DataStation desktop or server app will work better for larger datasets but it takes a while to handle data larger than 4GB. It should handle 10gb+ eventually but it will be slow.
gwbas1c 4y ago
I've done various flavors of the "solo founder" thing. What I've realized is that promoting a project; and making the economics work are extremely different skills than developing the software. I personally enjoy the software side too much to be a solo founder. When I'm in a place where I'm able to start something new, I'm going to look rather aggressively for someone to work with who can round out my shortcomings.
fasteddie31003 4y ago
Fellow solo developer here. Making https://gainknowhow.com/ https://gainknowhow.com/ . It's my take on how to keep everyone on the same page at growing organizations. My basic premise is that the current data structure to store documentation in folders is not ideal. A better data structure to store knowledge in a graph of connected ideas. Storing knowledge in this manner ensures users understand context when learning skills. I'd love your feedback.
- mayormcheeseman 4y ago
  This looks pretty cool! May I ask what tech stack you use? I always find that info curious.
LukeEF 4y ago
'The open-source developer tools market is one of the worst markets one could possibly end up in... the answer is basic microeconomics. Developers love building developer tools, often for free. So while there is massive demand, the supply vastly outstrips it. This drives the number of alternatives up, and the prices down to zero.'[1] 5 years later and this still feels correct. From one OSS Dev Tool founder to another - more power & good luck! [1] https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.htm...
andsoitis 4y ago
> That in-browser app is still around and supported today, though I kind of wish it wasn't since it means more code to maintain and test. Why not sunset it, given it presents an opportunity cost?
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Because it's the only 0-download/install demo environment and it's hard (impossible?) to tell from analytics if it's a useful funnel. Also, it can be convenient for testing/development since it requires no server. I'm indecisive.
calltrak 4y ago
hahnbee 4y ago
You have a broken link to your repo - I believe https://github.com/multiprcessio/datastation-documentation https://github.com/multiprcessio/datastation-documentation should be https://github.com/multiprocessio/datastation-documentation https://github.com/multiprocessio/datastation-documentation
cskCollo 4y ago
What you have achieved in one year is pretty impressive. I also think that there is a potential for a good business somewhere in there. If I were you, I would hang in there and change tact a bit. For example, have you considered reaching out to some of your target customers(organizations) to understand what it would take for them to use such a tool? Or what makes them not use the tool? One thing to note is that sales process for enterprise software is tricky e.g A dev might like the solution but someone else writes the check. It's a whole science and it's one factor that influences success
peter_d_sherman 4y ago
Brilliant Idea! I hope you succeed wildly! Upvoted and Favorited! (Now, as a side note, if funding decisions were up to me, I'd suggest not using VC, never using VC, staying as far away as you can from VC, treating VC as if it were a highly addictive and intoxicating substance, like alcohol is to some people: "When friends don't stop friends from using VC..." (you know, like those old Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) ads from the 1980's <g>) "VC" above = "Venture Capital" (system) not "Venture Capitalist" (person). (You know, like "Love the sinner, but hate the sin..." or more colloquially in recent times, "Don't hate the playa, hate the game..." <g>) You might want to read the following articles: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/06/03/fixing-venture-capital/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/06/03/fixing-venture-cap... https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/07/foreword-to-8220eric-sink-on-the-business-of-software8221/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/07/foreword-to-8220er... But let's say that despite this, you still want to garner some funding... For whatever reason, after Googling, I can't seem to find a comprehensive list of the various types and tiers of startup financing capital that are available (for example, there are lists of VC's, lists of "Angel Investors", lists of Crowdfunding platforms, lists of ways to bootstrap a business, lists of financial institutions and interest rates for generic borrowing -- but nobody has really sought to unify all of these sources into a single spreadsheet showing an amount of capital borrowed, and what is owed to whom in return for the capital (i.e., Equity (and if so, what %), in the case of VC's, Interest (and what %) in the case of Banks/other lenders, Finished Shipped Product (in the case of Crowdfunding platforms), or other debts/obligations as appropriate). You could of course, just proverbially "keep the day job", that is, finance the startup costs with other employment -- and avoid all debt/obligations related to borrowing for your business altogether -- at the cost of your time, and working for someone else... If you absolutely positively (you know, like FedEx! <g>) cannot go without VC of any sort, then you might wish to consider Pioneer's $20,000 for 2% of your company deal (https://pioneer.app/ https://pioneer.app/) This might be better than YC's $125,000 for 7% IF (if and only if!) you can launch your company for $20,000 or less. If you can launch your company for $10,000 or less, I wouldn't even go with Pioneer, I'd go with Crowdfunding and/or Family & Friends funding and/or bank loans and/or revenue from a day or part-time job... At least if you self-finance, the "Pound of Flesh" (the drawback or compromise or hook or caveat -- with my apologies to Shakespeare's "The Merchant Of Venice") that could have been present in your company's future -- will never come due! It's sort of like, pay now or pay later... pay now with due diligence and thrift -- or pay later, when the VC owns you! <g> Anyway, wishing you well with your blossoming company!
richardfey 4y ago
Are GitHub stars a good metric for success?

589 points by revorad 4y ago

> They weren't a fan of me being a solo founder and they felt the usage wasn't high enough i don't understand the logic here why would you need YC if you have found a co-founder and have some usage already? can't you just start making money?

alex_suzuki 4y ago
Solo founder means bus factor is high. You don’t even have to die. Having a co-founder increases the chances of you being in it for the long run. But having a co-founder can pose a whole set of problems itself…
- cube00 4y ago
  I would have thought co-founders are more problematic because they need to agree on everything but it sounds like a solo founder is an overall negative which I found surprising.
dvt 4y ago
> why would you need YC if you have found a co-founder and have some usage already? can't you just start making money? YC is primarily looking to invest in unicorns that have returns in the 100x-1000x range. Even if you're "making money," you might just be a lifestyle business (e.g. selling custom art on Etsy) or a small business (e.g. family-run bike shop). And while both might be profitable (the owners might even be worth 7+ figures), neither of these have any realistic chance of becoming the next Amazon.

mbrodersen 4y ago

It is a bit of a misunderstanding to say that the work hasn’t been funded. It has been funded by lost earnings. If the developer instead could have made (say) $100k working on something else, then the funding was $100k. The same way that not selling a car you have been given for free cost you the money you could otherwise have made selling the car.

donkeyd 4y ago

DSQ seems pretty interesting. I don't have a use for it right now, but I'm sure it's something that'll be useful in the future!

ilikerashers 4y ago

Really impressive that you kept going through all those peaks and troughs. While not financially rewarding, it must have been great exercise for your resilience!

badpun 4y ago

> How do you query this data or join or filter across such disparate sources? The only two solutions today are to put ALL data into a warehouse or to write custom scripts. Isn't this whole problem space already addressed by a bunch of multi-source query engines (falling under the buzzword "Data Virtualization"?)

eatonphil 4y ago

Hey this is my story! It's been a genuinely fun year. Looking forward to doing better next time. Datastation/dsq are in a great spot and I'm looking forward to them continuing to grow. Happy for your suggestions and flames.

ushakov 4y ago
DataStation looks very promising! i'd like to suggest you to also build a business else, you'll end up like countless of other startups and open-source projects that existed for a brief moment but failed due to not making any money try working on both your business offer and your software offer in tandem your software product should serve your business, not the other way around this is the approach i'm using right now for Typosaur (.com)
manceraio 4y ago
It looks like your projects resonate with people, and more important, you are capable of putting them in front of many eyes. Which is even harder than writing code. For that reason, don't seek the validation of VCs and figure out a business around it. Let your customers be your VCs. Congratulations on your work :)
tmcw 4y ago
Really liked the post! I really admire the attitude & intention that's there – at least from an outside perspective it seems like you've made the most of the experience and sort of had fun with it. Hope to take some inspiration from that.
svnt 4y ago
You just need (to become, to partner with) a business person. If you’re determined to be CEO get a CEO mentor and an early sales VP who can do all the interpersonal stuff you find uncomfortable. If you want to stay in product/dev find a cofounder to be CEO. They are late so cofounder doesn’t necessarily mean 50/50 here. Founder vest. It’s evident your story needs tuning as “I had a hard time paginating results” is not the real story here nor is it very compelling and just reinforces initial uninformed opinion in the space that you’re only scratching an itch that isn’t market-validated. What are other people doing with your product? That is the story. This feels like it could be a really big thing.

tosh 4y ago

Inspiring read, congratulations on the progress and thanks for the write-up.

cube2222 4y ago

Hey, congrats on the journey! Especially on the community building aspect, it's really impressive that you've been able to spark so many communities on various platforms (Reddit, GitHub, Discord, etc.)! On a more technical note, since dsq is based on the "load it into SQLite and query it from there" architecture, have you considered integrating with the plugin ecosystems of other existing projects based on that same architecture, like Datasette[0]? It seems like a way to add a lot of value to your tools without much work. Just curious, cause I'm thinking about doing something similar for OctoSQL[1] (write an adapter for the rich library of plugins Steampipe[2] has, as they have a similar gRPC plugin-based architecture as OctoSQL), for the reasons I listed above. On a more commercial note, overall I think tools like this are very hard to monetize, because right now they're just a fairly niche use case, between - as you mentioned - full blown data analytics platforms and observability query systems, as well as standard unix tools. Especially since if you need the analytics a lot, you'll probably have time to integrate it into your preferred analytics solution (like BigQuery). Do you have any thoughts on that? [0]:https://datasette.io https://datasette.io [1]:https://github.com/cube2222/octosql https://github.com/cube2222/octosql [2]:https://steampipe.io https://steampipe.io

eatonphil 4y ago
Hey Kuba! > Especially on the community building aspect, it's really impressive that you've been able to spark so many communities on various platforms (Reddit, GitHub, Discord, etc.)! Yeah it's been so cool to see so many people come together, hobbyists and professionals. > On a more technical note, since dsq is based on the "load it into SQLite and query it from there" architecture, have you considered integrating with the plugin ecosystems of other existing projects based on that same architecture, like Datasette[0]? It seems like a way to add a lot of value to your tools without much work. Interesting idea! I haven't looked into Datasette too much. And I haven't thought about plugins too much either. The most I've done is extend the SQLite standard library [0] and I hope to continue growing that. I'd be curious to hear what specifically people like from Datasette they'd like to see in dsq. > On a more commercial note, overall I think tools like this are very hard to monetize, because right now they're just a fairly niche use case, between - as you mentioned - full blown data analytics platforms and observability query systems, as well as standard unix tools. Especially since if you need the analytics a lot, you'll probably have time to integrate it into your preferred analytics solution (like BigQuery). Do you have any thoughts on that? My idea was always to focus on smaller and less mature organizations, probably ones that have been around for 10+ years. They aren't using BigQuery, they prefer to host everything themselves, and they don't yet realize there are tools like DataStation that they can easily run to make analytics easier. I've worked at a bunch of companies like this so I know the market exists. Actually I have been surprised how many people outside of this market showed up in the DataStation community. I've seen Googlers, MS-ers, modern startups, data science teams show up interested in DataStation compared to what they're already using. For me it's just been a matter of time (and funding) to build out the product to serve these communities commercially as a SaaS or enterprise product. [0] https://github.com/multiprocessio/go-sqlite3-stdlib https://github.com/multiprocessio/go-sqlite3-stdlib

jensneuse 4y ago

Thanks for this writeup, I can relate 100%, especially the part on the supportive spouse. I've built WunderGraph (https://wundergraph.com/ https://wundergraph.com/) as a solo-dev for multiple years until I reached a similar point like you. It's weird to say, but my wife kind of accepted that I'd work on weekends between 1-3 pm when the kids sleep. What helped me get out of this "solo-time-drain-thing" was to find the right Co-Founders to help me. I've found a really nice guy to help me with Marketing, and another one who helped me develop the Product. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, find a team." I hope you can find some way of financing so that you can push through this wall. For me, it was working a full time job and building WunderGraph at night and on the weekends, but it's making you age quickly. I wish you the best for your future.

ushakov 4y ago
> working a full time job and building WunderGraph at night and on the weekends this is actually a terrible advice, although i'm glad it worked out for you! this type of side-hustling can quickly turn into losing your startup or your job (or both) better approach is to save some money, leave for a year and become profitable from day 1 profitability will decrease your chances of failure dramatically
- jensneuse 4y ago
  I actually lost my job. I'd also advise against replicating what I did, but it was my only option really. I'm not born rich, single income dad, paying off the house. I wasn't able to afford to "leave for a year". It's also a timing thing. The right time to do WunderGraph is now, not in two years. So I had to decide to give up a dream or work through this and risk my job. Luckily, I've found the right people to help me and first customers at exactly the right time. But trust me, WunderGraph was at tables-takes for a long time.
  - heisenbit 4y ago
    This is really the one challenge in Germany: High fixed costs and high taxes making it hard to sock away seed money yourself.

yayr 4y ago

Thanks for sharing this. Regarding funding - I think this is a very crowded space and it is hard to see, how data station will get 10x better than other toolings. E.g. on the self-service side there are solutions like Alteryx, that are progressing quite quickly. On the dev oriented side e.g. for automated productive integrations you have various toolings available e.g. in the could platforms. Yes, they all cost money, but they deliver also value. There will be a niche certainly for this tool somehow, but I think this path needs to be approached together with customers. So if you find someone who is willing to pay $$$ for a certain addition to the tool, you'll have some light into the direction this could head to be self-sustaining.

infinite8s 4y ago
Alteryx is quite pricy though - about 5k/seat for the designer.

noduerme 4y ago

First code in Brython?! I'd never even heard of that but wow, that looks like a monstrous unholy way to write a GUI.

eatonphil 4y ago
Just the panel eval implementation for Python code panels, not the actual app.

Fiahil 4y ago

> How do you query this data or join or filter across such disparate sources? The only two solutions today are to put ALL data into a warehouse or to write custom scripts. The problem with warehouses are that they are expensive and that the ETL process for every new database is expensive too. > Tons and tons of companies are trying to solve this. You'll get lost among all the vendors trying to capitalize on the “Modern Data Stack”. They're expensive. Yes, and Yes. However I see a path for a new kind of warehouse that isn't a "Git for Data" or a Databricks' product. "Topics" (Kafka terminology) containing versioned datasets could help organise and discover what is available in a given repo. The Data versioning would help ensuring reproducibility of any AI pipeline consuming those, because artefacts would be kept unaltered "forever". And finally, availability would be supported by a simple set of read-only replicas. Your best alternative today consist of stuffing a blob storage with parquet files, and giving write access to a proxy (or to everyone, if you want to live dangerously). Where are append-only semantics ? Conflict-free artefact creation with concurrent reads ? There is massive opportunities here, it's almost exciting ! PS : > I'm particularly interested in ending up at a database or analytics company. So if you're a database or analytics company hiring managers or developers, feel free to message me! I see you in the thread, so does a consulting company with a massive Data Science arm is of any interest to you ? :)

eatonphil 4y ago
> I see you in the thread, so does a consulting company with a massive Data Science arm is of any interest to you ? :) ha, maybe! You have my email.
cube2222 4y ago
I think Pachyderm[0] is exactly what you're describing. [0]:https://www.pachyderm.com https://www.pachyderm.com
- Fiahil 4y ago
  We used pachyderm before MLOps was even a thing, sadly, back then they tried to solve everything at once while failing with the most basic needs. If your data versioning "Utilizes a Git-like structure that enables effective team collaboration through commits, branches and rollbacks", then it means you can only consume one version at a time in your pipeline. This is, unfortunately, a fatal flaw. Especially when working with time series !

raunometsa 4y ago

Plausible comes into my mind: how Uku found his co-founder in marketing and how things took off from there. They're now at $1M ARR: https://microfounder.com/blog/cofounder-in-marketing https://microfounder.com/blog/cofounder-in-marketing (also open-source btw)

yieldcrv 4y ago

Pursued funding unsuccessfully, zero patrons, only reason its still open source is because they couldnt monetize with venture capital, got lucky in getting internet points, now interviewing for a job Exactly why you dont do this too Saved you some time

eatonphil 4y ago
I mean it's not a success story but it was fun and I've got cooler interviews lined up than I have ever had before, got to speak with VCs for the first time, learned a ton, and got out of it an app I've wanted for years. :) I would actually recommend this sort of sabbatical if you can afford it and were in a similar situation as I was, basically.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing it! These are great parts of a tech career
benibela 4y ago
Story of my life

ThePhysicist 4y ago

Advice regarding VCs: Don't ever talk to them if they randomly approach you saying they "really like what you're doing". They will gladly sent an associate to talk with you about your business in the greatest detail and ask you to share presentations, demos and metrics. Anything you give them will then get passed along to their own portfolio companies in your space. So don't feel flattered when they feign interest in your company, they're mostly just doing reconnaissance. Ignore it as chances are you're feeding them information they'll use to kill your company. If you're really interested in VC funding you should proactively approach VCs (ideally using introductions by your network) that seem suitable. And you should check beforehand that they don't fund your main competitor.

streetcat1 4y ago
The markets are huge (I dare to say endless). Nobody is getting killed.
james_impliu 4y ago
Had this happen (random outreach). Led to a series A. Respectfully disagree - I don't think competitors copying is a significant risk early on, compared to running out of money whilst trying to hit product market fit.
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  Fair point, maybe I formulated that a bit drastically, though I have seen this kind of reconnaissance increase quite a bit recently, so maybe I'm just fed up with it.
- upupandup 4y ago
  based on your anecdote against hundreds of thousands of founders getting spied on. I've seen it happen. Basically if somebody wants to invest ask them: $ and t+ If they try to dodge or make up excuses, MOVE ON. IF they say if you give me A,B,C and then we can invest, ask them to put them in writing and put an exit fee. If they do not invest, they give you 1% of the proposed amount. Somebody who is serious and has the balls won't waste time. Unfortunately rare. I've wasted a two years of my youth because a VC on HN reached out to me, who ultimately just used my product/coding services. Any dumb fuck can be a VC if they can raise cheap capital. Remember, there is very small group of VCs that know what they are doing. The rest are just in the game to spray and see what sticks on the wall (most of them do not make it during a downturn)

streetcat1 4y ago

If you can, it is always better to go full time. If you hourly rate is 150$ (in the market), and you can work 300H a month (including weekend) (It should be 400 hours - 13 hours a day). Than you are basically making around 70-100K a month (in value), but paying only 4K (in cash, your living expenses). Of course, if you are 2X, 3X , 4X engineer , you are basically making 300K a month for 4K cost.

_gabe_ 4y ago
I'm not sure this makes much sense. If you work for a large corporation you can easily make 100K+ a year and work a very reasonable 40 hours or less a week and live off of 4K a month. Unless you're actually realizing those gains and earning 300K a month, you are not "basically making 300K a month for 4K cost". You are making 0 dollars a month for 4K cost. Further, if you think that it will pay you back in full in the future (instead of making the money right away), you will have to invent a wildly successful product and/or customer base to backfill the pay for all the previous hours worked. Realistically, you'll probably make nothing for your first year unless you start with a plan to secure funding. You'll also bust your ass for a year while losing money in the hopes of a reward in the future. I know they say time is money, but it's not money the way you seem to be equating it here haha.
dahart 4y ago
You are saying never start a startup? If you don’t want to take a risk on a startup, you’re much better off taking a salary job than trying to get a high hourly contracting rate. Strange analysis, these numbers mostly don’t add up. People contracting at an hourly rate almost never get constant consistent work, otherwise you’d get hired on a salary. You have to spend half your time looking for work, and you’re not accounting for that at all. At 400 hours/month, you are suggesting working 90 hours per week for 365 days per year. Having worked this many hours before for stretches, I know first hand this is a recipe for complete and total burnout and depression within a few months. And even 90 hours per week at $150 per hour doesn’t add up to 70k/month, it’s 60k/month. 2x/3x engineer is usually referring to productivity, but not pay. You generally can’t increase your pay by being more productive. Pay scales that you’re talking about ($300/hr, $450/hr, $600/hr) are extremely rare in engineering and come only with niche software markets. Almost nobody is making hourly rates like that, there’s nothing basic about it, this is an unrealistic goal.

rubenfiszel 4y ago

Your story is very inspiring and it mirrors closely my experience with building windmill.dev as a solo founder, an OSS project for multi-step automation from minimal scripts. I got lucky enough to get into YC this batch and if this is of any interest to you, we could really use someone with your experience in the founding team. Shoot me an email if of any interest: ruben@windmill.dev

eatonphil 4y ago
Actually it was because of your post a month ago getting in that made me apply to YC in the first place. Nice work yourself. :)

froggertoaster 4y ago

Is it bad that the first metric the author shares is a borderline vanity metric (Github stars)?

dt3ft 4y ago
I reacted to this as well. I hope he/she gets real value for the work they put in. Having worked as a developer and consumer of open source work (for huge finance institutions), it pains me to see how devs pour their souls into open source projects, and consumers (our bosses) don’t even know or care who wrote the code everyone is using.
- froggertoaster 4y ago
  Precisely my concern.
eatonphil 4y ago
The way I think about it is it's about showing growth by any means. When you're starting from nothing you talk about anything you can. Only in the last few months have I been able to switch from focusing on Github stars in talking to VCs to talking about actual usage by humans. For the sake of the article though it's a hook I figured might encourage folks to keep reading. :)
dahart 4y ago
No, it’s not bad, it’s good. Keep in mind the realistic alternative in practice is number of users paying for a yearly subscription. Which would you rather see more often as an engagement metric - subscription plans, or open source users? It would be a sign of vitality for the open source community if github stars were a metric that VCs sought more often. All metrics for pre-seed startups are based on popularity, that’s what VCs ask for: indicators that people want to use your product, whether it’s monthly active users, monthly recurring revenue, or github stars. When someone is trying to build it via open source rather than a subscription model, github stars might be the best, or even only available way to track engagement reliably. Also, part of the story was about how long it took to reach a certain number of stars, and they compared it to other projects that got as much engagement more quickly.

itake 4y ago

Is it possible to do more SQL over CSV in the browser? I'd love a simple browser app that I could drop a CSV file into and write SQL against. Right now I use `j`, but its a bit clunky.

eatonphil 4y ago
Yeah! app.datastation.multiprocess.io supports this! Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LEV3ZeQWU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LEV3ZeQWU&feature=youtu.be
- itake 4y ago
  Ooo! that is cool. The UX took a second to get used to, but it meets my needs. Does this work with larger datasets (10gb+)? Does it upload the data to a server?
  - eatonphil 4y ago
    It's purely in-browser/in-memory. So no this version won't work for large datasets. The DataStation desktop or server app will work better for larger datasets but it takes a while to handle data larger than 4GB. It should handle 10gb+ eventually but it will be slow.

gwbas1c 4y ago

I've done various flavors of the "solo founder" thing. What I've realized is that promoting a project; and making the economics work are extremely different skills than developing the software. I personally enjoy the software side too much to be a solo founder. When I'm in a place where I'm able to start something new, I'm going to look rather aggressively for someone to work with who can round out my shortcomings.

fasteddie31003 4y ago

Fellow solo developer here. Making https://gainknowhow.com/ https://gainknowhow.com/ . It's my take on how to keep everyone on the same page at growing organizations. My basic premise is that the current data structure to store documentation in folders is not ideal. A better data structure to store knowledge in a graph of connected ideas. Storing knowledge in this manner ensures users understand context when learning skills. I'd love your feedback.

mayormcheeseman 4y ago
This looks pretty cool! May I ask what tech stack you use? I always find that info curious.

LukeEF 4y ago

'The open-source developer tools market is one of the worst markets one could possibly end up in... the answer is basic microeconomics. Developers love building developer tools, often for free. So while there is massive demand, the supply vastly outstrips it. This drives the number of alternatives up, and the prices down to zero.'[1] 5 years later and this still feels correct. From one OSS Dev Tool founder to another - more power & good luck! [1] https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.htm...

andsoitis 4y ago

> That in-browser app is still around and supported today, though I kind of wish it wasn't since it means more code to maintain and test. Why not sunset it, given it presents an opportunity cost?

eatonphil 4y ago
Because it's the only 0-download/install demo environment and it's hard (impossible?) to tell from analytics if it's a useful funnel. Also, it can be convenient for testing/development since it requires no server. I'm indecisive.

calltrak 4y ago

hahnbee 4y ago

You have a broken link to your repo - I believe https://github.com/multiprcessio/datastation-documentation https://github.com/multiprcessio/datastation-documentation should be https://github.com/multiprocessio/datastation-documentation https://github.com/multiprocessio/datastation-documentation

cskCollo 4y ago

What you have achieved in one year is pretty impressive. I also think that there is a potential for a good business somewhere in there. If I were you, I would hang in there and change tact a bit. For example, have you considered reaching out to some of your target customers(organizations) to understand what it would take for them to use such a tool? Or what makes them not use the tool? One thing to note is that sales process for enterprise software is tricky e.g A dev might like the solution but someone else writes the check. It's a whole science and it's one factor that influences success

peter_d_sherman 4y ago

Brilliant Idea! I hope you succeed wildly! Upvoted and Favorited! (Now, as a side note, if funding decisions were up to me, I'd suggest not using VC, never using VC, staying as far away as you can from VC, treating VC as if it were a highly addictive and intoxicating substance, like alcohol is to some people: "When friends don't stop friends from using VC..." (you know, like those old Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) ads from the 1980's <g>) "VC" above = "Venture Capital" (system) not "Venture Capitalist" (person). (You know, like "Love the sinner, but hate the sin..." or more colloquially in recent times, "Don't hate the playa, hate the game..." <g>) You might want to read the following articles: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/06/03/fixing-venture-capital/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/06/03/fixing-venture-cap... https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/07/foreword-to-8220eric-sink-on-the-business-of-software8221/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/07/foreword-to-8220er... But let's say that despite this, you still want to garner some funding... For whatever reason, after Googling, I can't seem to find a comprehensive list of the various types and tiers of startup financing capital that are available (for example, there are lists of VC's, lists of "Angel Investors", lists of Crowdfunding platforms, lists of ways to bootstrap a business, lists of financial institutions and interest rates for generic borrowing -- but nobody has really sought to unify all of these sources into a single spreadsheet showing an amount of capital borrowed, and what is owed to whom in return for the capital (i.e., Equity (and if so, what %), in the case of VC's, Interest (and what %) in the case of Banks/other lenders, Finished Shipped Product (in the case of Crowdfunding platforms), or other debts/obligations as appropriate). You could of course, just proverbially "keep the day job", that is, finance the startup costs with other employment -- and avoid all debt/obligations related to borrowing for your business altogether -- at the cost of your time, and working for someone else... If you absolutely positively (you know, like FedEx! <g>) cannot go without VC of any sort, then you might wish to consider Pioneer's $20,000 for 2% of your company deal (https://pioneer.app/ https://pioneer.app/) This might be better than YC's $125,000 for 7% IF (if and only if!) you can launch your company for $20,000 or less. If you can launch your company for $10,000 or less, I wouldn't even go with Pioneer, I'd go with Crowdfunding and/or Family & Friends funding and/or bank loans and/or revenue from a day or part-time job... At least if you self-finance, the "Pound of Flesh" (the drawback or compromise or hook or caveat -- with my apologies to Shakespeare's "The Merchant Of Venice") that could have been present in your company's future -- will never come due! It's sort of like, pay now or pay later... pay now with due diligence and thrift -- or pay later, when the VC owns you! <g> Anyway, wishing you well with your blossoming company!

richardfey 4y ago

Are GitHub stars a good metric for success?