
ReadMe (YC W15) Raises 9M Series A from Accel and Y Combinator - iMuzz
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/28/readme-scores-9m-series-a-to-help-firms-customize-api-docs/
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luc4sdreyer
> Prior to today’s funding announcement, the company had taken just a $1.2
> million seed round in 2014. Today, it reports 3,000 paying customers and
> that it has been profitable for the last several years

Well there is something you don't see every day.

I'm impressed by how far they've come. If in 2015 you told me you're starting
a company that helps companies customize their API documentation, I would have
marked you as a particularly shiny unicorn.

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gkoberger
Founder here! I know funding news isn't always a match for HN, but I'm glad
someone posted it here since HN is where it all started.

Here's our launch, if anyone wants to go back and look:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422408)

~~~
sytse
Congrats on the raise. Interesting to use to API logs to provide better
debugging and support. Can you give an example?

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gkoberger
Thanks Sid!

Let's say you get back an error. We've made it so the API creator can link in
the response to a unique page in the docs, where they'll see their actual API
log. They can see exactly what the server saw and returned, replay the
request, and more. If an error code is returned, the API creator can write out
what the error means and how to fix it.

If that's not enough, they can open a support ticket on ReadMe, and include
the logs that seem broken. That way, both sides are looking at the same API
logs, and know things like what SDK is being used or if the data is URL
encoded properly.

Lastly, we're going to build tools that are more proactive. Like, if a
customer is getting a certain threshold of errors in production, we'll make it
easy to trigger an email to them with a warning.

~~~
mobee
Guess what's going to be part of the next GitLab release...

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choward
I've read pretty much everything on the site and between the high level
marketing speak and generic wireframes, I have no idea what it does or what
problem it actually solves. There's even a link if you hover over about that
says "Learn about why we exist". I thought for sure that would have something,
but it's just a list of all the employees. It looks like the only way to
figure out what it actually does is to sign up.

If had come across their site without any context I would have assumed it was
a generic marketing site template that needed to be filled in. I'm sorry for
being so negative, but I am interested in documentation related technology and
it bugs me that I can't for the life of me figure out what this is after seing
things posted about it on Hackernews for the last few years.

~~~
gkoberger
Hey! We do API documentation, plus a bunch of other tools. All the logos are
click-able (for example:
[https://developers.intercom.com/](https://developers.intercom.com/)) if you
want an example.

So, basically, we sit at developer.whatever.com, and take care of everything
from reference guides to marketing pages to tutorials to support forums. If
you have any more questions or feedback, feel free to email me at
greg@readme.io!

We're always updating the homepage, so we'll definitely do our best to make it
more clear in the future!

~~~
guptaneil
Cool product, but +1 on better links. I’d definitely add a big demo button on
the homepage. I just wanted to see how the docs look, but flipped through 3
pages and couldn’t find a single real screenshot or link. Finally just went to
Trello’s docs myself to see an example.

Also, the company logos don’t appear at all on an iPad in portrait mode.

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foobaw
Big reason why Readme really didn't work for us was because - we wanted one
secured internal knowledge base and one external knowledge base but that was
not easily supported. Also we needed integration with Zendesk because we
wanted to re-direct customers to our KB but that was not easily done.

~~~
gkoberger
Feel free to reach out to greg@readme.io if you're still interested!

You can have multiple projects, and the internal ones can be secured in a
variety of ways (OAuth, site-wide password, admins only).

As for Zendesk, we have an integration (the little modal popup thingy), or you
can disable our support forums and redirect any sub-URL to Zendesk!

It still might not be the right fit, however I'd love to talk more if you have
feedback or thoughts!

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bg0
[you're right]

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bretpiatt
$100 is 1/50th of a $5,000 per month employee. From looking at your business
from the website in your profile it feels like high quality API docs could
speed up many members of the team.

It's hard to evaluate situations from the outside so I could also be totally
off. At Jungle Disk we consume a ton of tools and they are all easily positive
ROI. Good people are hard to find and expensive vs. SaaS subscriptions.

~~~
paggle
Where on God’s green earth do you have a $5,000 per month employee writing API
documentation?

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gkoberger
I'm not sure if your reaction is because it's high or low!

WIt's not just writing. ReadMe doesn't write anything for you. You'd have to
build the "platform" before anything is actually written.

But $5k/mo works out to be a ~$30k salary after taxes.

~~~
paggle
Because it’s low of course. You actually have $60k employees who can write API
docs?

