How Segment survived its brush with death to become a customer data unicorn | Hacker News Reader

How Segment survived its brush with death to become a customer data unicorn

venturebeat.com

84 pointsgwintrob11 comments

Apparently user fingerprinting is where the money is.

I note that the uMatrix web browser add-on blocks the entire domain of the company.

Must be on one of those lists, because my pi-hole blocks it too. It's funny, just yesterday I was searching around for some server log analytics solutions for my site (settled on GoAccess for now) and they kept popping up in my search results. Never clicked on them though as the link descriptions made it clear they weren't what I was looking for.

Yep.

The world would've been a better place if Segment had more than just a "brush" with death.

An abbreviated version of this story is included in this great post on how 22 now-successful companies got their first users/customers https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/how-to-get-first-customer... (Segment, Tinder, Quora, Reddit, etc.)

Segment won developer mindshare because Peter and the team made a strong commitment to developer success.

For my project, he came onsite to help me, then invited me back to HQ to meet the team, debrief, and share the roadmap.

I have recommended Segment many times since then, and I'm stoked for the company's success.

The title is a bit misleading IMO. The company was in a state of flux before they pivoted and rebranded as Segment as far as I can read (when they had a different name). The actual company 'Segment' seems to have been on a great course of growth since then.

Surprised to see that mparticle isn’t listed as a competitor. I’ve seen what Salesforce is working on in this space and it’s nothing compared to mparticle and segment.

Thanks for the shout. Just wait to see what else is coming from us in the coming months...

This is an all-too-common story with startups, as PG points out in several essays. Often startups only make sense looking back, and don't lend themselves to business-plans & analytics.

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