[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public - AMA
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Tell HN: Amplitude (YC W12) just went public - AMA
HN- you are the community that convinced me to get into startups. I
wanted to come back and share what the experience of building a
company has been like from inception to public listing. I'll be
here for a couple hours to answer your questions. Ask me anything.
Author : sskates
Score : 70 points
Date : 2021-09-29 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
| rvz wrote:
| Well done and congratulations.
|
| Just like the Freshworks IPO which the CEO was inspired by a HN
| comment [0], it is good to see more founders getting their
| companies listed on the stock exchange and have gotten their
| inspiration from this site which is what I want to see here. Once
| again well done!
|
| And I also will be buying Amplitude stock at near market close.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28625322
| yehudalouis wrote:
| Hi Spenser! Congratulations by the way to you and your team.
|
| I've been working quietly on a project which I hope to turn into
| a product. When I speak with potential customers and users,
| they're very excited, but when I work with VCs, I receive the
| tired argument of "but XYZ incumbent pretty much dominates the
| market."
|
| That's fine, and I feel that I am differentiated enough, but I'd
| love to hear how in the early days of Amplitude you battled the
| "okay but what about Mixpanel" conversation?
|
| I'm fine with not raising cash for a while. I'd much rather put
| something out there and then have my user growth speak for
| itself.
| tlb wrote:
| Do you have any screen shots from the first version you put in
| front of customers? It'd be fun to see how far it's come.
|
| I assume investment banks were trying to convince you to do a
| traditional IPO instead of a direct listing, so they could
| collect some fat fees. What were their best arguments?
| random123876 wrote:
| https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/20/real-time-mobile-analytics...
| mtmail wrote:
| Oldest screen in web archive I can find is
| https://web.archive.org/web/20121204213532/http://www.amplit...
| "Welcome to our awesome mobile analytics platform!" with just a
| login form.
|
| Oldest landing page I can find is
| https://web.archive.org/web/20130529150217/https://amplitude...
| dang wrote:
| Hmm - I re-upped* this post after seeing it, but I wonder if
| Spenser is now busy with other things, since more than "a couple
| hours" have passed.
|
| In the meantime, Geoff's article from yesterday is here:
| https://blog.ycombinator.com/amplitude-w12-is-going-public/
|
| * a la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
| sskates wrote:
| Thanks Daniel! Sorry, I'm on it right now!
| cwhatididtheir wrote:
| Just wanted to say thank you. We are still small and well within
| the free tier, your service is incredibly valuable to early
| startups and I look forward to returning the generosity as we
| grow.
| Jugurtha wrote:
| Congratulations,
|
| In addition to claudiulodro's question about whether the
| employees, especially the early ones, made a good chunk.
|
| - Could you explain the reasons you took it public? What were the
| parameters and different tradeoffs? Did you want to take it
| public? Was there a consensus? What were the conversations about
| that?
|
| - How long have you been preparing for and do you have a playbook
| for this?
|
| - Who did you hire to take it public, and how have you selected
| them?
|
| - What was your relation with the underwriters? How did you
| choose? What did you optimize for?
|
| - How has your cap table evolved from formation to now? How did
| you ensure fairness?
|
| - Hindsight is 20/20, but what would you differently?
| light_triad wrote:
| Congrats Spenser & team!
|
| I hadn't realised that you pivoted a couple of times before
| starting Amplitude. Do you have any advice for powering through
| in the early days and evaluating startup ideas to get beyond the
| dreaded 0 to 1 stage?
| rnavi wrote:
| Would love to learn what were like three pivotal moments in the
| company's journey from startup to IPO
| shry4ns wrote:
| Congrats Spenser! Just curious to hear -- what do you expect to
| be the biggest differences in your role as CEO pre and post IPO?
| mtc010170 wrote:
| Congratulations, I'm a user and big fan of your product! Three
| questions:
|
| 1) What was the hardest part of your journey to IPO?
|
| 2) If you could give just one piece of advice to early-stage
| founders, what would it be?
|
| 3) Of all the common startup mantras you hear repeated, what one
| would you would advise people to ignore?
| matsemann wrote:
| If I had a product page featuring either a horse-sized duck or
| 100 duck-sized horses, which would get the most clicks?
| koolba wrote:
| Definitely the horse-sized duck.
|
| Do one thing, and do it well.
| jedberg wrote:
| Obviously you have to A/B test it and try both.
| [deleted]
| hashamali wrote:
| Hey Spencer, congrats on going public! I've been a happy
| Amplitude customer at several companies now. If you were starting
| a company today, what would you do differently from how you
| approached starting Amplitude?
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Congrats! Been keeping an eye on you guys for a while.
|
| What kind of trade offs were involved in the direct listing? How
| confident were you that was the best way to list?
| brd529 wrote:
| What did you do to beat Mixpanel to IPO - when they had a couple
| year head-start?
| mathattack wrote:
| Congrats! Any string views on how pricing changes over time? (Do
| what it takes to get early reference customers versus maximizing
| long term revenue later on)
| christophergs wrote:
| Thanks for doing the AMA!
|
| How did you discover your repeatable distribution channel, and
| what did it end up being?
| andrewljohnson wrote:
| It seemed critical early on that Amplitude basically made what
| MixPanel charged a lot for free, by providing a huge free tier.
| This is how my company ended up on Amplitude... and then we
| didn't pay for years, until we eventually ended up paying
| $40K/year then more.
|
| That pricing structure seems like a very long-viewed approach
| that could have easily been ruined by short-term product
| thinking.
|
| Was there ever internal or investor pressure along the way to cut
| or pare down the free tier?
| teej wrote:
| One of the mistakes Mixpanel made was to position themselves as
| a "better" Google Analytics. That meant a generous free tier
| without the benefit to search that Google gets.
|
| Amplitude, from the moment I was aware of it, was more about
| productizing the Facebook/Zynga style product analytics
| approach.
|
| I left Zynga for an early startup in 2011. At that time, I
| tried to use Mixpanel for acquisition and retention analysis -
| it fell woefully short. I wasn't able to use any of the built-
| in reporting.
|
| Meanwhile, I have been a mega fan of Amplitude from the first
| time I ever used it. It was built for the "product data" use
| case first, not as a Google analytics replacement. That
| positioning made it easier for them to demand premium pricing.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| There are loads of products this applies to, I think trying to
| charge small clients too soon is often a false long term
| strategy especially if you have growth and a plan!
| robinjhuang wrote:
| Congratulations Spencer! Had a question about the early days. How
| did you keep everyone motivated during the early days of heads
| down building before you had real customers? Did you talk to
| customers during that time, and what best practices can you
| share? How did you communicate your vision to your team /
| investors?
| ignoramous wrote:
| Congratulations! So happy for you. I'm sure others in this
| community are too.
|
| Some Qs:
|
| In as competitive a space that Amplitude operates in, what were
| some decisions the company took during tough periods or in
| anticipation of dooms-day scenarios that you think proved
| invaluable?
|
| Consequently, what moments do you think would have killed
| Amplitude if not for luck or execution or vision or hardwork?
|
| What is that unique insight the competition still doesn't _get_?
|
| Thanks.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Congrats!
|
| HN is always saying that working for a FAANG is better money than
| working for a startup even if it IPOs, so my question to you is:
| How did your employees make out during the IPO? Is the prevailing
| HN wisdom correct? Did your average developer employee that stuck
| it through with you on your journey end up with more or less than
| what they would have made working at FAANG?
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(page generated 2021-09-29 23:00 UTC)