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Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

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Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#11

Post by claar »

Swizec wrote: post #4
lubos wrote: post #2

MixPanel has very generous free plan and many free users. Sales people were hired to try to convert free users into paying customers. Plan failed, sales people shown the door. This is why companies need to think really hard about freemium model. In case of MixPanel, many of their free users keep adjusting so they send just enough data to stay under free plan. They are probably not going to be persuaded by sales peopl…

As one of those free MixPanel users - their non-free plan is just too expensive. I eventually stopped using MixPanel altogether. In a choice between "only get a small subset of data" and "get all the data, but super super expensively", I decided I just don't care enough and opted for no data. Or rather, the combination of gAnalytics and a few others is Good Enough (tm).

This was exactly the path our startup took as well.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#12

Post by nailer »

[deleted] wrote: post #3

[deleted]

A search for 'Neil Patel' ended up on http://www.quicksprout.com/pro/

"Hey, I'm Neil Patel. I’m determined to make a business in successful. My only question is, will it be yours?"

It then analyses your site, finds a whole bunch of 'errors', and won't tell you what they are until you tell them your marketing budget (which you should, because there's 'only 1 place left'). It might be a fantastic tool, but its marketing is a real turnoff.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#14

Post by aaronbrethorst »

Swizec wrote: post #4
lubos wrote: post #2

MixPanel has very generous free plan and many free users. Sales people were hired to try to convert free users into paying customers. Plan failed, sales people shown the door. This is why companies need to think really hard about freemium model. In case of MixPanel, many of their free users keep adjusting so they send just enough data to stay under free plan. They are probably not going to be persuaded by sales peopl…

As one of those free MixPanel users - their non-free plan is just too expensive. I eventually stopped using MixPanel altogether. In a choice between "only get a small subset of data" and "get all the data, but super super expensively", I decided I just don't care enough and opted for no data. Or rather, the combination of gAnalytics and a few others is Good Enough (tm).

I had the same experience, and I have to say that I'm torn in that I can see both sides. MixPanel doesn't want to screw around with $10 or $20/month plans, but I have no interest in paying $150/month.

They want bigger customers than me, which is fine, but that also means that if and when I turn into a bigger customer, I might already be locked into a different solution.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#15

Post by api »

jaredtking wrote: post #8
lubos wrote: post #2

MixPanel has very generous free plan and many free users. Sales people were hired to try to convert free users into paying customers. Plan failed, sales people shown the door. This is why companies need to think really hard about freemium model. In case of MixPanel, many of their free users keep adjusting so they send just enough data to stay under free plan. They are probably not going to be persuaded by sales peopl…

This. We use Mixpanel's free plan and were recently hit up by their sales team. It's unfortunate because Mixpanel is an amazing product that we would be happy to pay for, but it's just too expensive relative to the value we get out of it.

Sounds like broken freemium: margins too low to sustain, price too much of a leap.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#16

Post by dominotw »

nailer wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #3

[deleted]

A search for 'Neil Patel' ended up on http://www.quicksprout.com/pro/ "Hey, I'm Neil Patel. I’m determined to make a business in successful. My only question is, will it be yours?" It then analyses your site, finds a whole bunch of 'errors', and won't tell you what they are until you tell them your marketing budget (which you should, because there's 'only 1 place left'). It might be a fantastic tool, but its marketin…

I got this on page 2

"Hurry! Only 1 spot is available "

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#17

Post by sreeramvenkat »

nailer wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #3

[deleted]

A search for 'Neil Patel' ended up on http://www.quicksprout.com/pro/ "Hey, I'm Neil Patel. I’m determined to make a business in successful. My only question is, will it be yours?" It then analyses your site, finds a whole bunch of 'errors', and won't tell you what they are until you tell them your marketing budget (which you should, because there's 'only 1 place left'). It might be a fantastic tool, but its marketin…

I got 11 'errors' when I tried to analyze www.quicksprout.com

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#18

Post by bane »

lubos wrote: post #2

MixPanel has very generous free plan and many free users. Sales people were hired to try to convert free users into paying customers. Plan failed, sales people shown the door. This is why companies need to think really hard about freemium model. In case of MixPanel, many of their free users keep adjusting so they send just enough data to stay under free plan. They are probably not going to be persuaded by sales peopl…

One of the things lots of people (including founders) don't understand is that when they're converting from early stage VC subsidized business models to "we need to actually be a real business and make money", maintaining freemium means that the subsidies move from the VCs to paid customers, and paying customers hate to cover freeloaders.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#19

Post by suhail »

Hey everyone, I am one of the founders at Mixpanel. Layoffs were tough on us, we did over hire a bit, and wanted to make the company more lean. We are deeply sorry for those that are no longer part of Mixpanel - they were our friends and co-workers that we continue to miss.

I am happy to answer any questions that I can.

Re: Mixpanel Lays Off 18 Employees

#20

Post by buro9 »

lyime wrote: post #5
lubos wrote: post #2

MixPanel has very generous free plan and many free users. Sales people were hired to try to convert free users into paying customers. Plan failed, sales people shown the door. This is why companies need to think really hard about freemium model. In case of MixPanel, many of their free users keep adjusting so they send just enough data to stay under free plan. They are probably not going to be persuaded by sales peopl…

If you are doing 25,000 of fewer events, you are probably not making much money.

That's not true.

When I looked at MixPanel we were already at more than 8 million page views per month and wanting to track more events than that.

But as we wanted to try MixPanel, the best way was to start by sampling a small number of users and activities.

As our trial of the software progressed we found we got way more value out of sampling a smaller set that we could make sense of rather than measuring everything.

For us, MixPanel became one more tool in a wider toolset. We didn't see the value in jumping up to the paid level as we didn't feel it would replace all of the other tools.

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