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PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

planetscale.com

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Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#41

Post by criscofrite »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #36

I think this is very common playbook those days - Overdeliver to your customers whenever with Free Tier, Everything Open Source, Extremely Low Prices to get market share... when do a switch and focus on profitability. With killing free tier I wonder if it just was not generating a good conversion to paid users or is it killing a golden goose to get one time customer injection from folks choosing to move to paid tier

This was not a move out of a playbook. It's an incredibly thought out decision that comes from incrementally trying new things, seeing if they work, and constantly adjusting and making decisions that keep PlanetScale running.

At the end of the day, it's not cheap (and certainly not free) to maintain databases and infrastructure, especially with the additional features PlanetScale has.

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#42

Post by shay_ker »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #37

PlanetScale has been two products in one. It was born at Youtube as MySQL sharding solution for massive scale. In the last few years though it was adding features usable for developers on the small scale too, who do not need sharding but looking for database with better developer experience than MySQL. I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business. Companies…

> I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business

Hasn't this always been the case?

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#43

Post by PeterZaitsev »

shay_ker wrote: post #42
PeterZaitsev wrote: post #37

PlanetScale has been two products in one. It was born at Youtube as MySQL sharding solution for massive scale. In the last few years though it was adding features usable for developers on the small scale too, who do not need sharding but looking for database with better developer experience than MySQL. I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business. Companies…

> I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business Hasn't this always been the case?

I think so. However it looks to me Plannetscale tried to also become better database for developers... for databases big and small and utililize developer focused product lead growth.

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#44

Post by andrenotgiant »

AYBABTME wrote: post #11

They'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.

Don't you work for Planetscale? Why are you saying "they"? Were you affected by the layoffs?

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#45

Post by bilalq »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #37

PlanetScale has been two products in one. It was born at Youtube as MySQL sharding solution for massive scale. In the last few years though it was adding features usable for developers on the small scale too, who do not need sharding but looking for database with better developer experience than MySQL. I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business. Companies…

Cost may not be an obstacle, but process is. For some companies, getting approval to do that won't be easy. When services have free tiers, people can try them out as individuals before they go on to champion the case for using that tool at work.

A free trial can also work here, but the really short ones don't work well. It's not reasonable to expect people to devote all their attention to evaluating your service. It may take a few weeks or even a month to rack up just a couple hours of trying something out.

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#47

Post by spgonzalaz »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #37

PlanetScale has been two products in one. It was born at Youtube as MySQL sharding solution for massive scale. In the last few years though it was adding features usable for developers on the small scale too, who do not need sharding but looking for database with better developer experience than MySQL. I wonder if this change signals it is "Database for Large amount of Data" is what drives most of business. Companies…

Could also be plumping the turkey for sale.. ..who cares about sales and marketing if you’re just worried about cooking the books now and not the long term. Might also explain why there’s the overly rushed 1 month deadline (which is the bit I’ve found hardest to swallow).

As a user of the free tier, the short deadline has really soured my view of the company - I would have transitioned to a paid tier sometime down the line, but that’s not going to happen now. It’s fine if they don’t want to focus on me as a customer. But the tech world is small, I might end up being a decision maker in a tech company with a vldb requirement, is my opinion of planetscale going to be bias because of this now - absolutely.

But either way who cares about the long term if you’re just making yourself pretty in the shop window?

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#48

Post by pm90 »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #28
spgonzalaz wrote: post #24

Earlier 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…

Come on. Its a free offering. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for!

Re: PlanetScale performs layoff and prioritizes profitability

#49

Post by pm90 »

I don’t think I understand the logic behind laying off sales while emphasizing profitability as the reason. Without sales teams how will the product make money? Is the idea that the company has enough existing enterprise customers? Or customers are flocking to the product organically?

Overall I think this announcement leads to more questions.

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