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Airtable gets $52M in funding

businessinsider.com

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Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#71

Post by porker »

fiatjaf wrote: post #6
krisroadruck wrote: post #2

Happy to see these guys doing well. Got turned onto their product middle of last year and have started using it for all sorts of stuff. Its a great middle ground between an excel file and building a custom app for things. Super flexible with very little learning curve. Girlfriend and I even use it to track which wines we've tried, like, and ratings and stuff for them.

Would you use a spreadsheet for that? I'm asking sincerely, since most of open examples I see of people using Airtable and Fieldbook and other similar software is for these simple use cases -- in fact for tracking wines or whatever, a spreadsheet is maybe much better. Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly…

> Now when I tried to use Fieldbook for a somewhat complex bunch of data that gets currently added, 5 tables with references between them it has quickly bloated and become slow to the point of not being usable anymore.

I've had the same experience, glad it's not just me. It was a few months ago so I don't remember the exact details, but I could not model the complex relationships I wanted in Fieldbook (which I've used before) or Airtable (my first time). I didn't gel with the Airtable UI either.

Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#72

Post by kokey »

sheetjs wrote: post #40
simonswords82 wrote: post #34

I don't know man, I might not be the target audience (MD of a software company) but I just don't get this. It seems only slightly more useful than say a Google spreadsheet on a platform that yes might have blocks and templates but I didn't see anything there that made me want to switch away from Google Spreadsheets, Trello and a couple of other systems I use to run my 20 person £1mm turnover business. I'll keep it in…

Spolsky's discussion of Excel is probably the best way to understand Airtable: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2012/01/06/how-trello-is-diff... > Over the next two weeks we visited dozens of Excel customers, and did not see anyone using Excel to actually perform what you would call “calculations.” Almost all of them were using Excel because it was a convenient way to create a table. > What was I talking about? Oh yeah…

Using Excel spreadsheets multi user database instead of as a spreadsheet calculator is one of my pet peeves. Unfortunately it's also exactly what happens when organisations are lacking in processes and tools and less technical people have to try to make their own. So, I welcome any app that actually give people the multi user database that they actually need instead of e-mailing excel files to each other and losing track of versions.

Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#74

Post by prepend »

wanderer2323 wrote: post #65
simonswords82 wrote: post #34

I don't know man, I might not be the target audience (MD of a software company) but I just don't get this. It seems only slightly more useful than say a Google spreadsheet on a platform that yes might have blocks and templates but I didn't see anything there that made me want to switch away from Google Spreadsheets, Trello and a couple of other systems I use to run my 20 person £1mm turnover business. I'll keep it in…

I wouldn't compare Airtable to Google Spreadsheets or Excel for that matter. It looks more like a non-buggy Web 2.0 FoxPro, an RDBMS with a user-friendly UX.

I wish it was a Web 2.0 FoxPro. It’s maybe the closest, but the price model is too much.

You could buy foxpro for $1200 and create 100 databases with all sorts of janky workflows used within your small business. Paying $20/user/infinity for lower amounts of records doesn’t quite fit that niche. And so the hacked processes with Google Docs and now Excel365 continue.

Hopefully with this new funding, Airtable can fix their pricing model and become successful as Access was.

Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#75

Post by veritas3241 »

psteinweber wrote: post #29
veritas3241 wrote: post #19

Does anyone know how this compares to Coda[0]? I saw a post a while back about Coda and signed up to get an invite but haven't heard anything since. [0] https://coda.io/welcome

I know a bit about that, as I tried both. Spoiler: We kept using Airtable and Dropbox Paper instead. Pros Coda: - As implied above: it is quite good at merging the features of a "word processor" (more like Google Drive, Dropbox Paper) with Airtable like functionality (Spreadsheets that are very easy to use, filter, display differently... I.e. building small pseudo apps. Basically: you can add text above and below you…

Thanks for the insight! I haven't played with either but this is pushing me a bit towards airtable :)

Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#76

Post by GFischer »

wanderer2323 wrote: post #65
simonswords82 wrote: post #34

I don't know man, I might not be the target audience (MD of a software company) but I just don't get this. It seems only slightly more useful than say a Google spreadsheet on a platform that yes might have blocks and templates but I didn't see anything there that made me want to switch away from Google Spreadsheets, Trello and a couple of other systems I use to run my 20 person £1mm turnover business. I'll keep it in…

I wouldn't compare Airtable to Google Spreadsheets or Excel for that matter. It looks more like a non-buggy Web 2.0 FoxPro, an RDBMS with a user-friendly UX.

And FoxPro was great, so if Airtable is Web 2.0 FoxPro they might be onto something :)

Re: Airtable gets $52M in funding

#77

Post by jaredcwhite »

I think Airtable's marketing hasn't always been ideal, because I don't really think of it as a spreadsheet product. In fact, I've actually tried using it to do spreadsheet-like number crunching and it's just not that good at it.

What it really is is a darn-fine visual database that only looks like a spreadsheet (potentially...there are other views as well). The ability to create fairly sophisticated, structured data models along with an easy to way to collaboratively edit that data is pretty impressive. I've been using it both in my freelance business as well as to manage lots of household planning stuff along with my wife, and it's done a great job. I wish the Pro plan were cheaper...I'm only on Plus right now and want the features of the Pro plan. But I understand the need to charge for good tooling. (Also a happy paying customer of Basecamp here.)

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