

Mixpanel (YC S09) Raises $65M to Build Predictive Data Tech - lightcatcher
http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-VCDB-16129

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sqs
Congrats to Mixpanel on the raise. I have heard many great things from them
and used them at a previous company. They've done a great job of making it a
no-brainer for startups to start using more advanced analytics tools (not just
Google Analytics) from day 1. I think we're all better off for the ability it
gives product developers to improve their product based on actual usage--since
it means the overall quality of products is far better than if vanity metrics
drove all product decisions.

I noticed they mentioned Heap Analytics
([https://heapanalytics.com/](https://heapanalytics.com/)) as one of their
competitors. We've been using Heap for over a year and it seems like the
logical and magical next step in analytics. Mixpanel gave you smarter
analytics on things you had the foresight to track, but Heap automatically
tracks everything from the day you integrate it. That means you can get smart
analytics even on things you didn't have the clairvoyance to start tracking 6
months ago, or didn't have the resources to insert tracking code in.

For startups, Heap's automatic and retroactive tracking is huge. It means we
can iterate on product features and marketing/outreach schemes way more
quickly while still getting insight into what's successful and what's not.
It's not perfect--a couple times we've added special class names to our HTML
elements so Heap can distinguish them, but that's still easier than adding
manual tracking code--but it's a huge improvement over the old way.

I noticed Heap has a page comparing themselves with Mixpanel
([https://heapanalytics.com/compare/heap-vs-
mixpanel](https://heapanalytics.com/compare/heap-vs-mixpanel)) but I don't see
anything similar from Mixpanel's POV. I'd be curious to hear what Mixpanel's
plans are in this area (automatic/retroactive tracking).

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Lightbody
100% agree with the theory of what you're saying, but in practice I've found
that none of these new event-based analytics tools provide much value until
you add custom attributes to the events. That is where you get the important
slicing and dicing and segmentation.

Unfortunately, Heap's approach only captures the events automatically but
can't capture the business-specific attributes that need to go on those
events. Ultimately that will always require some human being to think about
their business-specific problems.

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matm
(I'm a founder at Heap.)

This is an excellent point. Two things:

1\. Empirically, we've found that our customers rarely fall back on custom
attributes. The vast majority of queries run in Heap (>75%) operate on
automatically-captured events. To me, this suggests we've either: 1) cut out a
significant portion of implementation work, or 2) enabled analysis that was
previously _blocked_ by implementation work. If either (or both) are true,
it's a win, and suggests that automatic event-tracking produces salient data
out-of-the-box.

2\. That said, some metrics are important and _do_ require manual
instrumentation. Coincidentally enough, we're about to launch a feature that
solves the problem you mention and requires no extra implementation work.
We're excited about it. Want to try it out on newrelic.com?

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mbesto
Doesn't NewRelic have it's own event-based analytics program (aka Insights)?!?

~~~
codezero
(ಠ ಠ)

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nathas
I really wish they would invest in helping their users answer the "Why"
question more. Why did users click that link 5000 times? Why is this funnel
dropping off? Why did the time-to-first-interaction increase?

These are questions for the business, but I feel like Mixpanel could add so
much more context. "We noticed that 'time to first interaction' has gone down
with 'watched home page video'." That would at least be a clue.

MP has the data, but all of that analysis is manual (or was, last time I used
it).

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shostack
This is in essence the "killer feature" of the analytics world, and it is
hardly an easy problem to solve.

Before Mixpanel can even attempt to solve that though, they first need to
tackle multi-channel attribution. Right now GA and Adobe are the big players
who tackle it, and GA only offers dynamic attribution (ie. the holy grail of
attribution) in GA Premium (which costs $150k/yr).

If you want a standalone attribution platform you're left with options like
VisualIQ, Convertro, Adometry, etc., all of which have recently been acquired
by big players in the space.

So yes, I'd love to see Mixpanel answer the "why." However the first step is
to truly answer the "where" question and until they add those tools, their
model is still fully last touch, and therefore dated.

Of course even GA doesn't use its attribution modeling capabilities outside of
the multi-channel/attribution reports, so they still have a ways to go too.
The big difference is, those tools are available today for free.

That said, congrats to Mixpanel. They made huge strides in the event tracking
approach that GA has since gone on to borrow, and that is what any modern web
analytics platform looks at these days because it simply makes more sense.

~~~
babs474
A plug for a former employer but I'd like to add optimine,
[http://optimine.com/insight](http://optimine.com/insight) to your list of
attribution platforms.

They've got an elegant and, as far as I know, unique modeling approach that
avoids the first-touch/last-touch/path-analysis pitfalls.

~~~
shostack
I've heard of them before. Seems like they are largely for bigger players with
offline touchpoints. How do they do with online SaaS companies with sales
cycles 30-90 days out and a variety of content efforts, social media, video
campaigns, etc.?

Also, would I need an ad server in place to properly attribute display or can
they handle that on their own?

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babs474
I think you are right they are targeting large advertisers with significant
spend.

It's a unique approach in that they don't need a lot of granular attribution
data, but instead use higher level aggregate data. As a result it's easier to
integrate with all kinds of media campaigns.

You need to be able to provide impressions over time for your early funnel ads
and conversions over time for your late funnel touchpoints. They use some
econometric time series techniques to analyze and estimate the impact so you
can focus on whats working.

~~~
shostack
Interesting, thanks for the details. Right now I'd give anything for a dynamic
attribution solution that didn't cost an arm and a leg and could be used at
the level of volume a SMB deals with.

GA's attribution tools are fun to play with, but at the end of the day they
are still static models that don't evolve over time as they collect data.

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polvi
Really impressed with their openness on the terms of the deal. He disclosed
valuation ($865mm-post) / dilution (7.5%) and their balance sheet ($22mm).
Very impressive terms for that matter. Congrats on the round and success with
the business.

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snowmaker
Congrats to Suhail and team. They have done absolutely incredible work with
Mixpanel, building the world's best analytics solution, starting from a tiny
team and against stiff competition.

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inthewoods
It's an interesting idea - but I'm skeptical that they can create a
generalized data model to support predictions across a wide variety of
industries or verticals.

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thorpus
2015 is so going to be the year of personalization and actionable analytics.
Seeing this stuff everywhere.

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rubyrescue
Congrats to the Mixpanel team. They have always been very supportive when
we've had questions. When we had a problem with a particular statistic a few
months back, they actually came on-site to diagnose.

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Yadi
Kudos to the hardworking team. I'v always thought that Google would acquire
them, but their commitment and goal driven startup means a lot to their
clients at this point, which is awesome.

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vinayp10
Mixpanel is awesome and rightly so their product is awesome!

