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Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

segment.com

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Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#81

Post by webmobdev »

jasonkester wrote: post #63
webmobdev wrote: post #3

If you run a business, I really don't understand the appeal of sharing a crucial part of your data (for web based applications / services) with a third-party (Google, Amazon etc. or maybe even Segments in the future) that may at some point compete with you ... especially when you can just parse your own web logs ...

Yes, it’s possible to have your engineering team build its own version of Mixpanel. And it may actually cost you less than it cost Mixpanel to build Mixpanel because it’s more focused on your needs. But you know who has already built Mixpanel? Mixpanel. And they’ll let your business use if for a couple hundred dollars a month. Starting today, not six months from now when your version would be finished. Better still,…

> Starting today, not six months from now when your version would be finished.

The raw data is with you. You don't need to wait for 6 months but launch a version with limited features and can continue developing it slowly, until it achieves whatever feature parity you are aiming for.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#82

Post by thekhatribharat »

buremba wrote: post #74

Segment is great for early-stage startups as it takes care of data pipeline for you so that you don't need to hire data engineers or waste time downloading reports from marketing tools and analyzing data offline using a BI solution or Excel. Since it doesn't provide any user interface that allows you to get insights from Segment data, you need to use a BI tool in order to be able to make use of this data which also r…

> Since it doesn't provide any user interface that allows you to get insights from Segment data, you need to use a BI tool in order to be able to make use of this data which also requires you to dedicate resource and spend some time on it.

The reason Segment doesn't have a user interface for insights is because it has destinations. There's a slew of BI tools you can choose from the catalog as destinations, including Mixpanel.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#83

Post by jameane »

rm999 wrote: post #33

I've used Segment at two companies in a row (in both cases they were implemented at early stages before I joined). It's a good product with broken pricing. They charge insane amounts of money for add-ons and seem to get exponentially more expensive as you grow. My recent renegotiation with them was the most painful experience with a vendor in my 12 year career. I want to like Segment, I really do. But until they chan…

Had a very similar experience at a previous company as well. At the end of the renewal meeting, we left with no indication our issues would get solved and a quote for a 4X price increase. We churned.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#84

Post by thekhatribharat »

lars_francke wrote: post #65

I'm having trouble understanding what the use-case for Segment is. Mind you: I work in a pretty unrelated field and almost never deal with the frontend/web stack. What would I use it for?

A typical web analytics pipeline involves collecting web data (events like visits, clicks, sign-ups, logins, purchases, email opens, email clicks, website chat sessions, etc.), collating that data and loading the collated data into a data warehouse - we may think of it as the first-mile ETL :)

The web analytics SaaS market is diverse and fragmented and each of those event types (mentioned earlier) is usually recorded via a different SaaS tool. This is where Segment comes in. It provides a unified interface for collection and collation of web data across a wide variety of web analytics tools - Google Ads, Intercom, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Zendesk, etc. and makes this process extremely easy.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#85

Post by buremba »

thekhatribharat wrote: post #82
buremba wrote: post #74

Segment is great for early-stage startups as it takes care of data pipeline for you so that you don't need to hire data engineers or waste time downloading reports from marketing tools and analyzing data offline using a BI solution or Excel. Since it doesn't provide any user interface that allows you to get insights from Segment data, you need to use a BI tool in order to be able to make use of this data which also r…

> Since it doesn't provide any user interface that allows you to get insights from Segment data, you need to use a BI tool in order to be able to make use of this data which also requires you to dedicate resource and spend some time on it. The reason Segment doesn't have a user interface for insights is because it has destinations. There's a slew of BI tools you can choose from the catalog as destinations, including…

If you're using Segment for Mixpanel or other end-to-end analytics providers, that's OK but IMO the real benefit of using Segment is being able to collect all your company data including customer event data, marketing, and CRM into your data-warehouse so that you have the big picture of all your company data.

Our solution basically provides Mixpanel-like interface for your Segment Warehouse Data (See https://segment.com/product/warehouses/) and you have the ability to see all your company data, unlike Mixpanel.

You can always use generic BI solutions to analyze the data collected by Segment but the product data has different semantics and Mixpanel-like solutions help the product teams to be able to ask more ad-hoc questions without any need of help from the data team.

Re: Segment Is Now Free for Early-Stage Startups

#86

Post by courtz »

jordinl wrote: post #67

I remember a few years ago I was working for a company that wanted to build a Segment clone, just a clone without any different functionality, with hopes they would raise money. Even when I asked how a feature should be implemented, instead of showing me some designs, all they would do was open up Segment and show me the feature... Suffice to say, the project failed and I wasn't surprised nor sad.

Im not surprised though - the cost is prohibitive. And even if they provide a free tool for 2 years, what kind of bill do you expect.

I believe this market is ripe for disruption. A clone, very differentiated by focus would certainly eat away and bring more aligned pricing. Right now, Segment are literally the only folks who do what they do. They do it well, but its not affordable to bootstrapped startups.

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