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Fivetran (YC W13) launches spreadsheet for data analysis

66 points by georgewfraser 14y ago

bradleybuda 14y ago
The Fivetran team has built an awesome product - I've been using the beta to play with some internal analytics data, and it hits a fantastic sweet spot between Excel, SQL, and R - it's a great way to explore a large data set.
- niggler 14y ago
  What do you consider "large data set"? It seems to choke with over 1200 data points (just take a simple excel sheet with A1=1,A2=2,...,A1200=1200 -- im guessing there's a hardcoded limit somewhere)
  - taylorwcbrown 14y ago
    Hey niggler - Taylor here from Fivetran. After 10,000 it stops rendering additional rows to avoid crashing your browser, but the backend uses an in-memory binary representation which is very efficient.
    - niggler 14y ago
      On Chrome 25.0.1364.172 I can only reach GR1001, even if column A is the only column with content. Can you put up demo projects with large datasets (one with 10K elements, one with 100K, one with 1M, etc)? For example, you could have one set with all of the zipcodes in the US (test for 10K) and another with the second-resolution price data of the S&P 500 stocks for a given day (test for 1M)
stox 14y ago
Wingz, reborn yet again.
gmichnikov 14y ago
Congrats on launching. I am always excited to try new tools like this. The idea of having an intuitive way to save a series of steps in a spreadsheet interface without having to use macros or use R is definitely appealing. I opened the March Madness example linked to on TC. I don't really understand how to trace what it is that has changed from one step to the next. Is there a simple way to do that? Is there another example you would recommend to understand how the steps work?
gfunk911 14y ago
Listing your pricing tiers in terms of memory makes me nervous. I have no idea how number of rows/cells maps to memory requirements. It's completely opaque to me.
polskibus 14y ago
How do you think you'll be able to compete with other BI tools? For example Tableau, has good table controls + lots of nice visualisations as add on? If you aren't competing in BI market, who do you think your target is, and why would they ditch Excel with PowerPivot and PowerView?
troymc 14y ago
My first thought was, "How is this different from all the other online power spreadsheets?" But then, buried in the footer of the homepage, I saw two very interesting links: Unit Testing - "Finally, automated unit testing for Spreadsheets." [1] Revision Control - "Revision Control For Spreadsheets. Track changes the way developers do." [2] [1] https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-unit-testing https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-unit-testing [2] https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-revision-control https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-revision-control
jeffwass 14y ago
Why do I need to give Fivetran access to my google accounts to try out their product? Eg, why can't I just enter my email account and click on the confirmation email for identity confirmation like every other service? From the google page: Fivetran is requesting permission to: View basic information about your account View your email address I don't know what 'View basic information about your account' means, but No Thanks.
cwilson 14y ago
The product looks and feels great, but I watched my co-founder (and CTO) get extremely frustrated at the new user walkthrough. He was trying to get it to stop walking him through the steps and did not succeed (he wanted to play with it on his own, not have his hand held), resulting in him closing the site. While I understand the value of these walk-through for people who do not spend a lot of time in web applications (though you might argue that this is so similar to excel that pretty much everyone is familiar with the interface), you should strike a balance by allowing someone to easily kill the walk-through.
nzealand 14y ago
I am part of a (presumably small) minority of users who absolutely loathe dark screens with white text.
lancewiggs 14y ago
Spreadsheet and sql data nut here. Signing up through Google is not the way to earn my trust to test this out. A simple login and password feels a lot more secure, and I would only test with that option. At least it is not Facebook.
joez 14y ago
Usability issues aside, there are no examples about sales or operating expenses. Sales Analytics (think: product, division, type, time) are where companies are having a ton of trouble. I would spend more time on this rather than March Madness to acquire paying users.

66 points by georgewfraser 14y ago

The Fivetran team has built an awesome product - I've been using the beta to play with some internal analytics data, and it hits a fantastic sweet spot between Excel, SQL, and R - it's a great way to explore a large data set.

niggler 14y ago
What do you consider "large data set"? It seems to choke with over 1200 data points (just take a simple excel sheet with A1=1,A2=2,...,A1200=1200 -- im guessing there's a hardcoded limit somewhere)
- taylorwcbrown 14y ago
  Hey niggler - Taylor here from Fivetran. After 10,000 it stops rendering additional rows to avoid crashing your browser, but the backend uses an in-memory binary representation which is very efficient.
  - niggler 14y ago
    On Chrome 25.0.1364.172 I can only reach GR1001, even if column A is the only column with content. Can you put up demo projects with large datasets (one with 10K elements, one with 100K, one with 1M, etc)? For example, you could have one set with all of the zipcodes in the US (test for 10K) and another with the second-resolution price data of the S&P 500 stocks for a given day (test for 1M)

stox 14y ago

Wingz, reborn yet again.

gmichnikov 14y ago

Congrats on launching. I am always excited to try new tools like this. The idea of having an intuitive way to save a series of steps in a spreadsheet interface without having to use macros or use R is definitely appealing. I opened the March Madness example linked to on TC. I don't really understand how to trace what it is that has changed from one step to the next. Is there a simple way to do that? Is there another example you would recommend to understand how the steps work?

gfunk911 14y ago

Listing your pricing tiers in terms of memory makes me nervous. I have no idea how number of rows/cells maps to memory requirements. It's completely opaque to me.

polskibus 14y ago

How do you think you'll be able to compete with other BI tools? For example Tableau, has good table controls + lots of nice visualisations as add on? If you aren't competing in BI market, who do you think your target is, and why would they ditch Excel with PowerPivot and PowerView?

troymc 14y ago

My first thought was, "How is this different from all the other online power spreadsheets?" But then, buried in the footer of the homepage, I saw two very interesting links: Unit Testing - "Finally, automated unit testing for Spreadsheets." [1] Revision Control - "Revision Control For Spreadsheets. Track changes the way developers do." [2] [1] https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-unit-testing https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-unit-testing [2] https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-revision-control https://www.fivetran.com/labs/spreadsheet-revision-control

jeffwass 14y ago

Why do I need to give Fivetran access to my google accounts to try out their product? Eg, why can't I just enter my email account and click on the confirmation email for identity confirmation like every other service? From the google page: Fivetran is requesting permission to: View basic information about your account View your email address I don't know what 'View basic information about your account' means, but No Thanks.

cwilson 14y ago

The product looks and feels great, but I watched my co-founder (and CTO) get extremely frustrated at the new user walkthrough. He was trying to get it to stop walking him through the steps and did not succeed (he wanted to play with it on his own, not have his hand held), resulting in him closing the site. While I understand the value of these walk-through for people who do not spend a lot of time in web applications (though you might argue that this is so similar to excel that pretty much everyone is familiar with the interface), you should strike a balance by allowing someone to easily kill the walk-through.

nzealand 14y ago

I am part of a (presumably small) minority of users who absolutely loathe dark screens with white text.

lancewiggs 14y ago

Spreadsheet and sql data nut here. Signing up through Google is not the way to earn my trust to test this out. A simple login and password feels a lot more secure, and I would only test with that option. At least it is not Facebook.

joez 14y ago

Usability issues aside, there are no examples about sales or operating expenses. Sales Analytics (think: product, division, type, time) are where companies are having a ton of trouble. I would spend more time on this rather than March Madness to acquire paying users.