

Will Rackspace Partnership Save FathomDB?  - bretpiatt
http://gigaom.com/2009/12/17/will-rackspace-partnership-save-fathomdb/
Disclaimer: I work for Rackspace and know the FathomDB team well.<p>This topic is interesting to me in general though and this is a good example to use for a talking point.<p>First, my opinion on this specific case -- I don't think partnering with us "saved" the company.  I do think it certainly helps them to reach an additional audience.<p>So now to use this as a more broad example case of the real question here, "As a startup how do you pick the proper defensible niche so you can grow enough to compete in broader open markets?"<p>I believe Fathom has done this by slicing up AWS instances going down to a smaller starting point.  Amazon isn't likely to enhance RDS to target the tiny customers but the "tiny DB" market can be enough for a startup to reach the elusive "ramen profitable".
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bretpiatt
Disclaimer: I work for Rackspace and know the FathomDB team well.

This topic is interesting to me in general though and this is a good example
to use for a talking point.

First, my opinion on this specific case -- I don't think partnering with us
"saved" the company. I do think it certainly helps them to reach an additional
audience.

So now to use this as a more broad example case of the real question here, "As
a startup how do you pick the proper defensible niche so you can grow enough
to compete in broader open markets?"

I believe Fathom has done this by slicing up AWS instances going down to a
smaller starting point. Amazon isn't likely to enhance RDS to target the tiny
customers but the "tiny DB" market can be enough for a startup to reach the
elusive "ramen profitable".

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michellegreer1
I also work for Rackspace. While it is in our best interest that FathomDB
sticks around, it's also in developers' best interest to use it. Why? No lock-
in. We like these guys. We think they work hard, and they truly are a service
oriented company. And if you decide you want to use them with us, or with
Amazon, or any of the other clouds that emerge, FathomDB won't lock you in.
Good stuff.

