11–20 of 168 posts
Welp, this changes my 2024 outlook. I've been using Airplane.dev since their first post on HN, and I was repeatedly delighted with the way the product "just worked", I thought they made great choices about code vs. config vs. admin, and their feature development velocity was superb. I was ready to really jump in and move beyond simple internal tools to build complex, mission critical internal systems in airplane. Doe…
Retool?
"The update is we're cancelling it"
"Thousands of engineers use Airplane to rapidly build UIs and workload automation for engineering, support, and operations teams." "As part of this transition, we will unfortunately be sunsetting the Airplane platform on March 1." So these "thousands of engineers" will only have two months to redo all of their work?
Potentially an acquihire due to exhausting runway? Would align with the idea of a startup funding crunch in the current macro, but only someone with transaction details and willing to violate an NDA (if one exists) would be able to share (if details aren’t going to be made public). Depending on comp, benefits, and infra, it is not outside of the realm of possibility to burn through $32M (Sep 2022 Series B raise) in ~…
Welp, this changes my 2024 outlook. I've been using Airplane.dev since their first post on HN, and I was repeatedly delighted with the way the product "just worked", I thought they made great choices about code vs. config vs. admin, and their feature development velocity was superb. I was ready to really jump in and move beyond simple internal tools to build complex, mission critical internal systems in airplane. Doe…
Normally you'd expect to see some layoffs and a paring down to profitability: it is SAAS, after all, so you'd expect high gross margins that could be operated by a skeleton crew if necessary.
I'm wondering what happened here -- was Airplane gross-margins negative? Was there some fundamental issue that was unsurmountable? In my mind, it's just kind of strange for a popular and widely used, evidently saleable product to wind up burning through all their runway and then ending in what looks like an acquihire. Odd.
"Thousands of engineers use Airplane to rapidly build UIs and workload automation for engineering, support, and operations teams." "As part of this transition, we will unfortunately be sunsetting the Airplane platform on March 1." So these "thousands of engineers" will only have two months to redo all of their work?
Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. You get laid-off just like their employees when they rush toward a shitty acquisition.
Let's be honest, nobody had 'Airplane' as some critical part of their business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Retool?
A retool is probably a given.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. You get laid-off just like their employees when they rush toward a shitty acquisition.
>Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. Let's be honest, nobody had 'Airplane' as some critical part of their business.
I don't get it. According to the blogpost, 450,000 organizations use Airplane, and over 50% of Fortune 500s are paying customers? Okay, that suggests a viable business. And then they're shutting down? Normally you'd expect to see some layoffs and a paring down to profitability: it is SAAS, after all, so you'd expect high gross margins that could be operated by a skeleton crew if necessary. I'm wondering what happened…
That’s Airtable (the acquirer) not Airplane. I’d be astonished if Airplane had anywhere near that much traction.
"An update on Airplane" "The update is we're cancelling it"