Last week, "Why are there so many parallel imports in the domestic database industry?" 》 The discussion is very popular. Today we summarize the views of the live broadcast guest Li Linghui. If you agree, you might as well give it a like~
Sharing guests:
Li Linghui
Founder of cloud-native database ClapDB, former CTO of Multiplication Cloud, CTO of Meiqia, and chief architect of Didi Chuxing.
Currently working on a new paradigm of cloud-based infrastructure to provide analytical data services in the new era.
ClapDB is a database designed and implemented from the ground up based on cloud native architecture, taking full advantage of the advantages of modern cloud native technology. Developed in C++, it is expected to provide higher performance, allowing you to easily and quickly obtain analysis results on any scale of data.
01 Database entrepreneurship cannot be just to follow the trend
Most data vendors are often colleagues who have done database research and development in large Internet companies or other large companies. They may be old and have encountered career ceilings or promotion bottlenecks, or they have some ideas that cannot be implemented in their original workplaces, so they take investment. Go for a project that may be similar to the original one, or have some improvements.
Because everyone's original intention and the products they used were very similar, the databases they produced were all very similar. Now, there may be thousands of companies in China that make databases. But in my opinion, there are probably three or four types:
The first is based on MySQL's magic modification, the second is based on PostgreSQL's magic modification, the third is based on PostgreSQL's Greenplum magic modification, and the fourth is based on Java's ES or Hadoop ecosystem packaging... It's not even modified, it's packaged.
But we are different. I used to start a SaaS business in the to B industry, and we tried dozens of fields. As a CTO, I encountered some problems. I found that when it was necessary to provide customers with a cheap and easy-to-use data analysis system, what was really missing was an engine, that is, an analytical database. We tried many open source and closed source products in the industry at that time, but either the performance was not enough, the cost was too high, or there was not even the demand I wanted. I felt that if a new need was met, the market would be big, so we started our adventure.
In the past three years, we have overcome many problems and finally made a product, at least I have not found a similar product in the world.
As a technical architect, I have been looking at two perspectives at the same time for a long time. One side is the team’s needs and solutions for technical components such as databases and distributed storage, and the other side is the business side’s needs for these things, so I stand on both sides at the same time. From the perspective of Party A and Party B, the products produced can also better consider both parties.
What we solve is the needs of some users who have demand for cloud services but are afraid of the price of public cloud. These users are not large companies. They may be just a small independent website or personal project, or a slightly larger company with a team of one or two people. They have little operation and maintenance capabilities, no DBA, and are not able to learn a complex manual with thousands of pages to deploy and use. This is difficult for them. At this time, we come in handy. We are equivalent to a cheaper Snowflake, which does not require a professional DBA and directly serves developers. Anyone can afford it and only needs the price of "making a friend".
02 The database must be well done and cannot follow Party B.
When you don't have a powerful enough standardized product and users' needs are not met, you have to let users help you figure out what to do, and users' imagination is not restricted. He doesn't think about the overall situation, he only thinks about his needs. This can easily lead to product deformation along the way.
For example, we once had a user who said: I can't stand your information being automatically saved, and I feel uneasy. Please provide me with a button, and I'll click it to save. I said that this button has no function. In fact, it has been saved. He said that I still need it.
Do you think this need should be met? To be honest, if you meet this demand, more customers will be surprised and say, didn’t you save it automatically? Why did you provide this button? This is actually a question of game: when Party A and Party B decide who is more authoritative and who can better represent the standard answer in this industry, whoever will be tougher.
You see our same Party A, when they met IBM and Microsoft, they were not so arrogant. Therefore, when you are a weak Party A, the respect you get is not enough.
Indeed, sometimes we are not professional. My client once asked me a question: I have been in this industry for 20 years, how many years have you been in it? Why do you teach me what to do? You can't say what others say is wrong, but there are specialties in the art industry. So I think that when starting a business, especially making products, you cannot go beyond your own circle of competence in understanding the problem. When you do something you don’t understand, you will naturally follow the needs of users.
For example, many toB companies in China first take orders before determining whether they can do it, so they will naturally encounter this problem. You have to limit your desires and don't do things you're not good at. In the face of unreasonable suggestions from users, you must have the courage to say no to them. You have to know that every yes you say is followed by a responsibility, and you must learn to say no.
03 It’s actually not easy to do business in the domestic market
Although there are many entrepreneurs, the domestic market is actually not easy to do. Even those who have already entered the industry can only make money, let alone those who follow up later. Because many times in China, the demand is very complex, this matter is actually not a good thing, indicating that standardization has not yet been formed.
I have done CRM before, and I can give you an example: a new company in the United States, even if they only have two sales, they will use Salesforce. Although the complexity of Salesforce is not suitable for small companies in my opinion, he is used to it. He has used it in other large companies and he does not want to learn anything else, so this is the benefit of standardization. Although it may not be a good thing for new CRM developers, it is a good thing for those who compile software based on the CRM ecosystem. You can develop a set of software based on the Salesforce interface and sell it.
This is a problem. When the market is not standardized, its informatization is very difficult to do. A market that completely needs your education may require you to spend a long time and devote your efforts to accompany it to grow. It's difficult to generate scalable revenue because the core value of our software is that the marginal cost is very low: the production cost of software is high, but a new copy is costless. Therefore, the initial cost of our software is high, but the editing cost is low. So if you cannot find an industry where editing costs are standardized, and your editing costs are not low, you will not be able to do this business. This is true from an accounting perspective.
04 Small companies have opportunities
However, small companies are not entirely without opportunities. One thing that is different between us and big databases is that we are not a company with strictly competing products. The customer groups we target are different. Our customer groups are at least small and medium-sized customers at the beginning, and later we will target central customers. We prefer to find a way together with our users. They save money while we provide functions. We have defects, but everyone can tolerate them and are willing to wait for us to grow. This market is the market where we can grow.
Based on my research on the toB market, I found that phenomenal products are all developed from small and medium-sized customers. For example, when Cloudflare came out, Akamai was already very big. Cloudflare has no chance if it competes head-on. So at the beginning, it basically served free users and users who paid 100 US dollars to 200 US dollars a year. It is still the same now. Those with more than 100,000 US dollars are considered big customers. Because, only in small and medium-sized markets, customers are willing to tolerate you, and you can also educate customers. So I think there is an opportunity to grow into a big tree from an area that others have not discovered.
There are many such examples. Salesforce, for example, only had more than 20 programmers when it went public, and most of its customers had less than ten registered coms. You can imagine how small these customers are. By 2016, their average number of customers was less than 15, and most of the customers they served were small customers. So I think small customers are worth cherishing. Although they cannot generate a lot of money in a short period of time, they can help you educate the market. MySQL is also an example. Small and medium-sized webmasters cannot afford Oracle, so they use MySQL. Therefore, we stand firmly with small customers, because small customers represent innovation.
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