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RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

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Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#11

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

Think about the developer tools and systems you use, then think "what would I expect to pay for these?" Chances are the answer is that you'd expect them to be free or you'd find something else. That's what makes it a bad market.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#12
post #10

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

Creating a database startup is hard. Source: Friends who created database startups.

Databases are particularly hard because it’s the bedrock of your persistent state. Trust grows like compound interest and it’s very difficult for a new player to present enough value to compete at a non-zero price point.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#13
With four years of hindsight, the estimate of DBaaS and managed database hosting companies of being https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/03/10/mo...), which means that assuming RethinkDB's estimates were correct, the market they wrote off as too small was actually about to explode into something much larger.

That's not to say that they would have succeeded if they'd gone after that though; instead we might have a blog post about how they correctly predicted where the market would go and simply ran out of money before the market got there.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#15

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

The problem is that this market is also one that is familiar to every other engineer. It's is a terrible one to get into because developers hate paying for their tools.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#16

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

Pretty much the entire sector is bad.

In general, it's much better to be in a market where you customers cannot do you your job, not just one where they don't want to do your job. In the latter markets, they start asking "Why should I pay you to do something I can do myself?", or just start doing it themselves, and that holds down the price you can charge.

This applies to a lot of familiar service businesses as well: housekeepers, gardeners, delivery/taxi/rideshare drivers, childcare, etc. Think of how much a doctor gets paid vs. a nurse vs. a home healthcare worker. The difference is all in skills that the provider can do but the customer cannot.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#17

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

I feel like the market for any fundamentally hard problem is bad, simply because it either solves a problem people didn't know they had, does it in a way that requires educating people for them to be able to use it or requires scale to be effective.

Take the internet for example - before the internet existed, the 'market' for the internet sucked.

For me, any company that failed due to solving too ambitious of a problem is the best kind group of people to invest into again and again until they succeed and succeed big. The people running it will have learned the easy lesson of solving a smaller problem faster, while retaining the chops to actually solve hard problems.

All too often, people fail because they solve too small of a problem - there was a recent discussion about that on here regarding a macos calendar widget.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#18

is the entire developer tool market bad, or just the db sector is bad? developer tool market seems to be the only one I'm familiar with as an engineer. If I were to start a business, I will probably also do something for this market.

You can monetize databases through DBaaS (as long as you avoid tying yourself in knots over "the AWS problem"). Developer tools that can't be implemented as SaaS are tricky.

To break out of "developers making tools for developers" you need to get some domain knowledge.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#20

With four years of hindsight, the estimate of DBaaS and managed database hosting companies of being https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/03/10/mo... ), which means that assuming RethinkDB's estimates were correct, the market they wrote off as too small was actually about to explode into something much larger. That's not to say that they would have succeeded if they'd gone after that though; instead we…

MongoDB's stock price is quite remarkable, given how dismissive a lot of people (including myself) on HacherNews have been of their offering.

It goes to show that HackerNews consensus != reality.

I do wonder where/how Mongo makes their money - if anybody has some insight, please share.

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