

Firebase (YC S11) Raises $1.1M For Real-Time App Infrastructure - mayop100
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/22/firebase-funding/

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eaurouge
My initial thoughts were that Meteor would be more widely deployed in
production than Firebase would. But it also seemed like Firebase had a more
obvious path to profitability than Meteor.

Given the current VC market and the rapidly evolving landscape of (so called)
real-time services, I'm surprised they raised such a small sum. I would have
thought if you were going to go the VC route, you might as well go all in and
raise a massive chunk.

With a (somewhat conservative) estimate of $10K a month per engineer and $1.1M
to spend, a team of 8 engineers would give you a runway of just under 14
months. I think you would want more runway than that.

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patio11
$10K is not a conservative estimate for fully-loaded costs of engineers in the
Valley right now. Budget $15k ~ $20k.

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eaurouge
Yes, it is. What do you think a "conservative estimate" means? Here are two
definitions for you: "moderate, cautious, low"[1]; "at the lower end of a
range of possible numbers"[2].

1\. <http://www.answers.com/topic/conservative>

2\. <http://www.definitions.net/definition/conservative>

~~~
patio11
I was assuming the value being optimized for was runway, so a conservative
estimate overshoots on probable fully-loaded cost which results in
underestimating how long you have until you die. Overestimating how long until
you die has more serious consequences from the perspective of, well, everyone
involved.

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crabasa
I think there's a good lesson for startups building platforms: don't
underestimate the importance of hustle.

I met James and his team at a hackathon this past March. Twilio (the company I
work for) was a sponsor, along with Firebase and several other API companies.
I had never heard of Firebase, and I don't think any of the ~100 developers
there had either.

James and his team (~6 of so colleagues & friends) spent that weekend talking
to every team there, understanding what they were trying to do and diving into
their code. They were everywhere, buying beer, lending a helping hand, you
name it.

3 months later, they raise a million dollars. Not a coincidence.

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silverlight
We're using this to power Roll20[1]. The whole team has been very responsive
and supportive of any and all questions. Congrats!

[1] <http://roll20.net>

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jasonlotito
Was a backer of Roll20. I love you guys. Excellent platform. Haven't had a
good chance to really put it to use, but I love everything about it.

~~~
silverlight
Thanks so much for the kind words!

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taskstrike
Congrats to them, they deserve it for a great product.

I've ran through the demos and have been waiting my invite to set in for a
while now.

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smoody
Are you working on a way to develop and delpoy apps on your platform without
shipping the entire source code to the app to the browser? I'm guessing there
are a lot of people who don't mind their source code being sent to each user,
but I think there are many of us who would love to use your platform that
would prefer not to do that.

Congrats on the funding!

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eldavido
Congratulations, guys. Will be very interesting to see the next version with
security and pricing. Any more details yet?

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mayop100
Still working! Security is our #1 priority right now.

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felixchan
Firebase has been all the hype lately. A fantastic seed round - congrats!

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wamatt
How does Firebase compare to Meteor?

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edanm
Great news!

Btw, how does this affect Envolve? Is Envolve going to continue running?

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i_am_andy
Fantastic interactive demo you guys have - very intuitive.

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debacle
Does anyone know what this puts their valuation at?

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jamiequint
It doesn't, valuation has little to do with amount raised.

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debacle
That's nonsensical.

If you raise 1.1m, and the investors get 10% stake, then your valuation is
11m.

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webwright
No, it's not nonsensical (aside: not a particularly polite way to disagree).
It's not entirely clear that this is a priced round. Even if it was, Jamie is
right-- they could have raised that money selling anywhere from 10% to 50% of
their company.

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giles
Awesome guys, can't wait for what comes next!

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yesimahuman
Congrats James and team!

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gringomorcego
are you guys still running on mongodb? any plans to migrate to riak?

