RethinkDB: why we failed (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#21

Post by akulkarni » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

  Read The Economist religiously. It will make you better faster.

You can read the Economist if you'd like, but it won't make you a better entrepreneur. Instead, find people who are smarter than you (in your area), do everything you can to convince them to spare you some of their time, and then be a humble (but discerning) sponge of information.

The challenge in fast changing markets is that the best information isn't written down anywhere (and especially not in magazines!), but that it's locked inside people's heads.

At least, this is what has worked for me (TimescaleDB founder)!

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#22

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

Database startups suffer from an extreme case of an important truism in startups generally: the product you think you are selling is not the product the customer thinks they are buying. No one buys a database per se, they are just a means to some other end.

People that love database technology — that would be me — tend to start database companies. It is very difficult to sell a database. It is much, much easier to sell a compelling solution to a somewhat boring but very valuable business problem that just happens to require an amazing database capability behind it. That’s your moat, the customer doesn’t actually care that there is an amazing database engine behind it but it makes it difficult for competitors to replicate.

Filed under “lessons I learned the hard way”.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#23

Post by runawaybottle » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

billconan wrote: post #4

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 know at some point in the last 20ish years, people really got used to the idea of free music. Once people get used to the idea of ‘free’, it’s like, good luck arguing against that.

I don’t think something like VSCode should be free, or a single api call on any platform, etc. Absolutely nothing should be free because people get too used to the idea of free. It’s a human failure.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#24

Post by ornxka » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #23

billconan wrote: post #4

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 know at some point in the last 20ish years, people really got used to the idea of free music. Once people get used to the idea of ‘free’, it’s like, good luck arguing against that. I don’t think something like VSCode should be free, or a single api call on any platform, etc. Absolutely nothing should be free because people get too used to the idea of free. It’s a human failure.

This post requires a Hacker News Gold account to view.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#25

Post by nodesocket » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

plorkyeran wrote: post #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…

I firmly believe that RethinkDB could have been a huge player along with the likes of MongoDB and Elasticsearch if they could have gotten additional funding or focused more on business development. Note: both MongoDB and Elasticsearch are now hugely successful public companies.

  - Changefeeds were so useful and still to this day not really matched in quality.  
  - Official client libraries were very high quality. I mainly used Node.js.
  - Performance (reads and writes) was impressive.  
  - Setting up a highly available cluster with sharding was incredibly easy with a few clicks and types in the aforementioned web U/I.
  - Their web U/I was the best to ship with a database at the time.

I still wear my RethinkDB shirt around, and it was a pleasure meeting one of the founders Michael Glukhovsky in San Francisco when they were still moving and grooving.

The best technology and product doesn't always win.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#26

Post by hardwaresofton » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

akulkarni wrote: post #21

Read The Economist religiously. It will make you better faster. You can read the Economist if you'd like, but it won't make you a better entrepreneur. Instead, find people who are smarter than you (in your area), do everything you can to convince them to spare you some of their time, and then be a humble (but discerning) sponge of information. The challenge in fast changing markets is that the best information isn't…

Very much agree with this point but for a different reason -- reading The Economist might be nice to get your feet wet with business/markets/investment-oriented thinking, but the vast majority of the stories you read in there are just not going to be relevant. Cocoa tariffs in some far flung place that are influencing the price of hot chocolate just aren't going to be relevant to your database SaaS, though it's certainly an interesting article, and that's the kind of interesting but not really relevant article that the economist often has.

Also, generally the Financial Times is the better standard for strictly business related journalism AFAIK, maybe they're neck-in-neck.

Spending 30 minutes to learn from someone in your field about how to get your next lead or which part of the internet you should be advertising to is a much better use of your time.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#27

Post by roenxi » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

The unspoken alternative in articles like this is that they don't know why they failed, or their view of the market is just not clear enough to form a judgement.

The industry is still in an awkward position where software deals in 'intellectual property', but the concept was never really developed with an understanding of whatever it is that software is. Something like PostgreSQL for example isn't exactly a product, a service or a novel idea. Most of its consumers don't use most of its features. It is almost a perspective on a problem and some codified good design ideas.

It isn't obvious if selling a perspective is profitable. There are a lot of winners in software that don't actually sell software. Eg, Facebook/Google sells eyeballs, Amazon sells infrastructure, Apple sells iPhones.

MongoDB.Inc probably doesn't sell 'a database' if the details of their customer relationships were open for inspection.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#28

Post by runawaybottle » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

ornxka wrote: post #24

runawaybottle wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know at some point in the last 20ish years, people really got used to the idea of free music. Once people get used to the idea of ‘free’, it’s like, good luck arguing against that. I don’t think something like VSCode should be free, or a single api call on any platform, etc. Absolutely nothing should be free because people get too used to the idea of free. It’s a human failure.

This post requires a Hacker News Gold account to view.

And it would be worth it. Never give an inch unless you want yards gone.

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#29

Post by hewrin10 » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #20

plorkyeran wrote: post #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…

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.

HackerNews is wildly detached from reality

Re: RethinkDB: why we failed (2017)

#30

Post by Godel_unicode » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

tdeck wrote: post #11

billconan wrote: post #4

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.

I think jetbrains, github, atlassian et al would like a word with you.