
Segment (YC S11) Raises $15 Million Series A - pkrein
https://segment.com/blog/segment-raises-15M-accel-kleiner-perkins/
======
andreash
Congrats Peter! I've been using segment.io with many projects and clients
since 2012, and I'm superhappy. Peter also helped me alot. My only concerns
are:

1\. That they will continue to raise prices like many other in the SaaS-space,
without grandfathering excisting user/customers.

2\. That they will keep limiting certain integrations to their premium plans.
This prevents me from integrating with them for new "pet"-projects. I make a
lot of MVP-type product for clients, that we test the demand for. For such
products, I usually integrate with a lot of tools straight away (GA, Mixpanel,
Facebook Ads, Adwords, Optimizely). Even though such MVP-project only will get
a few hundre visitors, it still requires Segment.io's "Startup"-plan, which is
79usd/month. I think it makes a lot more sense to allow most integrations for
the free plan, and rather segment your customer based on API calls. Many of
the integrations that require the Startup-plans are really useful for MVP
project (Facebook Ads, Adwords, Kissmetrics, Mailchimp etc.). So please
segment your customers based on API-calls, not integrations (maybe except for
super expensive enterprise software). I know I could just have one
"Startup"-account, and add all the MVP projects to that account, but some of
my clients want to have their own segment.io account.

~~~
beachstartup
uh, i disagree. strongly.

if you are incorporating their product into commercial projects of your own,
how in the world do you come to the conclusion that it should be free?

to segment: raise your prices according to the utility your product provides.
make money. this kind of product is changing the way enterprise software is
built and sold and viewed at large. i will gladly pay good money to a dozen
small saas startups rather than oracle or microsoft or whoever. i've worked
for the giants and it's a complete shit show. i know where that money goes and
it's not pretty.

i LIKE paying for saas because it feels like i am engaging in an actual
business transaction. i trust 'free' (as in gratis) solutions as far as i can
throw them.

also, companies that under-charge are toxic elements in the marketplace - they
push out healthy firms because they can subsidize the cost of operations and
marketing with an unlimited budget of funny money. and when that solution your
business is relying on goes out of business because they never had the
inclination to make any money, that sucks.

try going to the market and asking about their freemium chicken.

~~~
look_at_me_
No need to ask, your local super market or big box store probably already has
a freemium model -- samples
([http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/parenting/2010/08...](http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/parenting/2010/08/04/costco_sample320x272.jpg))

I do, however, whole hardheartedly agree with you sentiment about relying upon
free services or saas.

~~~
beachstartup
yeah i guess i thought too quick on the supermarket. but a closer analogy
would be eating an entire meal of samples every single day.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Retailers are often freemium btw. They have 0 margins on many items and make
money on others. That's why best buy pushes warranties etc.

~~~
beachstartup
freemium doesn't mean no margin on the cost. it means no cost to the customer.

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Croaky
Awesome! I'm a huge fan of Segment:
[http://playbook.thoughtbot.com/#instrumentation](http://playbook.thoughtbot.com/#instrumentation)

We're using this code-level approach in basically every one of our Rails apps
these days: [http://robots.thoughtbot.com/segment-io-and-
ruby](http://robots.thoughtbot.com/segment-io-and-ruby)

Most common integrations: Intercom, Mixpanel, HubSpot, AdWords, Twitter Ads,
Google Analytics.

Good interview with Peter (Segment founder) from February this year:
[http://podcasts.thoughtbot.com/giantrobots/86](http://podcasts.thoughtbot.com/giantrobots/86)

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jusben1369
Excellent news! We've used them at Spreedly for a long time now (a lot of
similarities in some ways) The biggest benefit for us is it helped us run
MixPanel and KissMetrics side by side for an extended period of time before
finally deciding. I think too there is an _enterprise_ API that will be
exposed allowing us to send the raw data to some custom tools?

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rmac
Why drop the .io and spend cash on the .com?I'd guess it was somewhere in the
10k-60k range...

Does the tld really matter? My hunch is that .io is perceived as a toy product
TLD and .com is where 'real' business is done?

This kind of sentiment sucks though because other startups probably see it as
well and will needlessly shell out cash for a .com.

~~~
pkrein
your hunch is correct. as engineers we're attached to .io ourselves, but
outside the developer community .io invites confusion -- as we grow, .com is
simpler.

we spent 10.5k :)

~~~
toddynho
That is a fabulous deal. Whomever handled that negotiation/purchase deserves
some donuts.

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mblevin
Congrats guys. As a Segment partner, we love that people can "take the Pepsi
challenge" in terms of other analytics platforms. Helps prevent lock in and
forces companies to continue to push value and differentiation vs relying on
"ugh I guess we'll keep XYZ because ripping out the integration is such a
pain"

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jph
Segment is great -- the team helped me with a complex mobile app issue, and
Peter personally came to my office, opened up code, and helped solve it.
Segment is providing stellar developer support and service to me and my
client. Congratulations!

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noinput
Big congrats to Peter, Raphel and the whole team! A solid service and solves a
real problem that developers go through every time they start a new project &
update their existing ones. Excited to see what you come up with next.

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aroch
I wonder how much of that 15m was spent to buy the .com domain? Interestingly
the domain was registered by DomainsByProxy, why is a real company hiding
their contact info behind DomainsByProxy?

That being said, I've used them for a little over a year and a half now and am
quite pleased. The "one stop shop" for integrating all the analytics and email
stuff is great

~~~
pkrein
a very very small fraction :)

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sskates
Congrats guys! We at Amplitude are very lucky you guys exist.

For quite a while, a majority of our new inbounds mentioned that they first
saw Amplitude through the list of tools at Segment. A lot of companies see
Segment as a recommendation platform- so they’ll go to them to get a list of
vendors. It's definitely huge for us that you guys are around.

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mkatz0630
Congrats guys! Brings continued and much needed attention to help app
developers more easily operationalize their data and connect with partners.

The ecosystem of developer tools is expanding fast and guys like Segment (and
us- mParticle) are helping lead the way for app developers to move faster and
build better apps.

This is good for everyone!!!

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sudonim
Congratulations Segment team! As I've said to multiple folks, working with
Customer.io through Segment removes "Integration risk"... the risk of spending
a bunch of time integrating and then hating the service.

I'm thrilled for your progress and excited for what your team does in the
future!

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paladin8
Huge! It's always been a pleasure to work with Segment, and they've made our
lives at Amplitude a lot easier. Glad to see that their hard work is being
valued :)

Congrats to the team!

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fourstar
Congrats. How has it been with TJ Holowaychuk on the team?

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arrowgunz
This is an amazing news. Congrats, Peter and the rest of the Segment Team.
Also, kudos on the Open Source work.

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mathattack
Congrats! That this comes 3 years post-cycle shows good tenacity on the part
of the team.

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mehuln
Congrats Guys! Doing it right is more important than doing it fast. Awesome!!

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shaunrussell
Congrats! We at CapLinked love your product.

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brandnewlow
Congrats guys!

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brentm
Congrats - this is a great service.

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jarredcolli
Way to go Peter!

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jarredcolli
congrats Peter!

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kuni-toko-tachi
Segment is a great service. One of the first things I setup on a new site.

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fwr
.com domains are getting expensive!

~~~
iaw
Is it just me, or has down voting become more of a thing lately?

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ishofwest
How is this service better than 100s of marketing companies out there ? All
you do is track people without their consent , steal data in un-ethical
manner. Anyone can raise millions these days. What a time !

