Firing sales and marketing and getting rid of the free tier. How are they planning to find new customers?
If they're killing it, then it likely wasn't worth the customers who did convert to paying.
PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
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Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#22I honestly believe removing the Hobby plan to be a huge mistake on the long-term, while optimizing for short-term profitability.
Without any inside knowledge, I can only speculate, and who knows, maybe PlanetScale wouldn’t have been able to continue as a business, if they kept serving the Hobby plan
What I am quite certain of though, is that PlanetScale is far from ubiquitous enough to have people take a bet on a service they’ve never tried, without a way to try it risk-free first
It’s a competitive space, and killing your funnel of “Engineers learning technologies as a side-project, and bringing they tech into their day job” seems to me at least to be very shortsighted
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#23[deleted]
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#24Its interesting the contrast between HN and X [0] as far as the sentiment goes on this change. On HN seems mainly in favor of this change while on X everyone is mainly against it. Personally, I'm glad I haven't built something on PS Hobby that I have to migrate but I do think its fair to charge for your product. [0] https://twitter.com/PlanetScale/status/1765438197981708684
The people against this on X are probably not building a business. They wouldn't be giving PlanetScale money anytime soon.
I don’t fall out with the change at all, but being given 1 month to migrate doesn’t seem well thought out, there will definitely be some avoidable negative sentiment related to that.
These are potential paying users not freeloaders to evict.
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#25They're doing the right thing. It's a killer business but this isn't 2020 ZIRP. If a company isn't profitable, it's not going to inspire trust, and this will hinder its growth and cost it deals. In addition to the tough VC market. At 39$/m, PlanetScale is a no brainer. Anyone with any clue will use this platform to build, and with these changes there's no doubt as to whether they will be there in 2y or not.
Again I don’t fall out with the changes, but your statement “If a company isn't profitable, it's not going to inspire trust” is pretty nonsensical - have a dig into that, clearly you’ll be surprised..
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#26"Removing sales and marketing" - That seems like an interesting decision unless those positions only existed to grow the free hobby tier.
I honestly missed the mention of layoffs..
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#27Its interesting the contrast between HN and X [0] as far as the sentiment goes on this change. On HN seems mainly in favor of this change while on X everyone is mainly against it. Personally, I'm glad I haven't built something on PS Hobby that I have to migrate but I do think its fair to charge for your product. [0] https://twitter.com/PlanetScale/status/1765438197981708684
Does that just make this an echo chamber?
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people against this on X are probably not building a business. They wouldn't be giving PlanetScale money anytime soon.
I don’t fall out with the change at all, but being given 1 month to migrate doesn’t seem well thought out, there will definitely be some avoidable negative sentiment related to that. These are potential paying users not freeloaders to evict.
This is the only real problem I have with how they handled the situation. But it's a big problem.
Whether or not these folks on free plans are ever going to convert to paid, they trusted PlanetScale to serve as a critical building block for their project/business. I think the least they could do is ease the transition by offering them a reasonable amount of time to offboard.
I personally would never trust critical infra to a company that has ever abruptly terminated a product offering with only 1 month notice.
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#29Its interesting the contrast between HN and X [0] as far as the sentiment goes on this change. On HN seems mainly in favor of this change while on X everyone is mainly against it. Personally, I'm glad I haven't built something on PS Hobby that I have to migrate but I do think its fair to charge for your product. [0] https://twitter.com/PlanetScale/status/1765438197981708684
With news like these, I always take the lesson: Nothing free lasts forever. If you are not paying for the product, the product doesn't last for you. You will have to migrate or pay eventually. They don't owe you anything if you don't pay.
Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t fall out with the change at all, but being given 1 month to migrate doesn’t seem well thought out, there will definitely be some avoidable negative sentiment related to that. These are potential paying users not freeloaders to evict.
This is the only real problem I have with how they handled the situation. But it's a big problem. Whether or not these folks on free plans are ever going to convert to paid, they trusted PlanetScale to serve as a critical building block for their project/business. I think the least they could do is ease the transition by offering them a reasonable amount of time to offboard. I personally would never trust critical in…
How many months is to be expected by industry standards?