sskates

9 ms·

31.
by sskates 5y ago
No, I started a company to maximize my positive impact on the world. Maximizing my economics/ownership/control was secondary so there was no question we'd raise venture capital if it would help us scale (and it did to massive
32.
by sskates 5y ago
Yes, but they later pivoted into SaaS and have gone on to dominate enterprise CMO budgets. It's one of the most impressive business model changes by a large company.
33.
by sskates 5y ago
Yes, you've hit on the other advantages of a direct listing! Retail investors get the same treatment as big funds instead of being shut out which I love. Everyone's also allowed to sell right away which so you know you have full m
34.
by sskates 5y ago
Holy cow, we're still going 16 hours later! I'm on a flight back to SF today but I'll keep answering questions as I have time. The questions here are so thoughtful (even more than some of the ones I get from public market inv
35.
by sskates 5y ago
Deals ranged between $12-120k/year. We were very much the "deer" range vs rabbits or elephant hunting. The customers ranged from small to mid sized companies, we only had 2-3 true enterprises at the time.
36.
by sskates 5y ago
Yes! It looks different when you're scaled as a company than in the early days. Product managers drive a lot of it, I expect that group to be spending at least 50% of their time talking with customers. They'll then bring in engine
37.
by sskates 5y ago
I believe a few things are happening: 1) The number of software engineers is growing quickly, but the market for software is growing even more quickly. So engineers are becoming more scarce relatively speaking and that pushes prices up. I d
38.
by sskates 5y ago
That is so cool! I had no idea it had gotten adopted so widely within YC. Wow!!! Be the change you want to see. I'm so glad the startup ecosystem is now adopting it as a standard. I'm so glad we did it- so many ex-employees are ab
39.
by sskates 5y ago
I completely agree with the linked post!
40.
by sskates 5y ago
To be clear, it's the first 10 engineers, a very different group from the first 10 employees. No question that the economics of FAANG is way better than an average YC company. That's an easy one. I don't have the data, but th
41.
by sskates 5y ago
The bankers advised me that getting a private jet would be too much but anything else was cool. Anne and I are not that flashy. Probably get a nicer house. Give some to family. Hermes handbags is as luxury as it gets for us.
42.
by sskates 5y ago
What I say here around not quitting is the most important one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28701942 You'll get better at evaluating what directions will result in traction as you go through more ideas and spen
43.
by sskates 5y ago
I'm so glad to hear it!
44.
by sskates 5y ago
Yes, exactly. I always joke that once you're out they won't even pick up your call as they're onto the next IPO. (I know that Morgan Stanley still has our back though!)
45.
by sskates 5y ago
I think part of it is the foundational wisdom is by and large correct. The hard part is knowing which applies to your situation. One place I got tripped up on was thinking the answer to every problem was working harder, preparing more, and
46.
by sskates 5y ago
I was doing high frequency trading before starting Amplitude. It was a great job: incredibly smart people, rewarding problems, great money and career progression. The only thing I didn't like was the ethos of secrecy in the industry. I
47.
by sskates 5y ago
The key thing to understand is it is a sales-led motion. As much as a lot of HN is not a fan of sales people, it is necessary for any buying process where there are multiple stakeholders involved. As much as I'd like for individual pro
48.
by sskates 5y ago
The roadshow is all virtual now. We talked to 32 different investors in 4.5 days. I tried to push for in person but almost everyone preferred Zoom and it was probably for the best because we could meet more people. The downside is it feels
49.
by sskates 5y ago
Overall success or failure rarely comes down to a single decision or single event. It's more about having enough compounding success and avoiding compounding failure. Probably our worst failure was our 2016 outage where we were down fo
50.
by sskates 5y ago
Suhail! It's good to hear from you, thanks for the note. Let's catchup sometime.
51.
by sskates 5y ago
We're more about execution than vision at Amplitude because that is my personal bias. The vision part has gotten clearer as we've grown. Even before you have any customers or a product, my #1 recommendation is to get engineers reg
52.
by sskates 5y ago
That's so great to hear. Please keep us honest as we continue to grow! Ask for money for your product, even if it's incomplete. We didn't start asking for money until a year in because our egos felt we needed to have a fully
53.
by sskates 5y ago
Our first sale was to an ex-Zynga founder of a casino gaming company (hey Bret!). We walked in, introduced ourselves, and went through the demo (note to past Spenser: spend a little time up front asking about their problems first!). We got
54.
by sskates 5y ago
This is beauty of data driven product- your users will tell you! I'm 60/40 on the duck, it's less confusing and more clear click target.
55.
by sskates 5y ago
Thanks! 1) It's not talked about much but this is an AMA so let's do it. Having to change our management team as we scaled. You have so much loyalty to people who made you successful it is brutal to have to hire a different set of
56.
by sskates 5y ago
Almost all of SV passed on Amplitude at one point or another. I remember one of them made a comment like "analytics companies pop up like mushrooms after a rainstorm". Raising our seed round was brutal. It took 6 months end to end
57.
by sskates 5y ago
Thank goodness for the Zynga diaspora! Zynga was ahead of its time when it came to building data driven products. They were the first company to get it down to a science. We're lucky to have so many ex-Zynga product people come across
58.
by sskates 5y ago
I'm going to try to answer the question without divulging how anyone individually did. I took a look at the initial 4 year option grants for the first 10 engineers (this doesn't count refreshers or other follow on grants). The ave
59.
by sskates 5y ago
Thank you! There are 3 main reasons we decided to go public: 1) The market opportunity is massive and we believe we are entering the "inside the tornado" phase where there are increasing returns to leadership. We're seeing mo
60.
by sskates 5y ago
It's great to have you as a customer. Make sure you give product feedback to our team! Most of the money in SaaS is in large clients in the enterprise. Almost all large SaaS businesses have been built that way (Salesforce, Adobe, Servi

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