The analytics space did not work out the way I expected. I remember the dark ages of google analytics where you couldn't granularly segment your data.

Then came Mixpanel with a product that worked well but had a critical flaw around tying back user profile data into event segmentation. That spawned off a number of competitors: amplitude, heap, etc.

Also the rollup product, Segment which basically put the fear of god in these companies' sales teams because switching costs were essentially negligible.

where Mixpanel began as the clear market leader, amplitude caught up. So began a race to the bottom for lowering the cost per event tracked as well as an arms race of features. Oddly enough, all of these companies are YC backed, and yet in competition with one another.

This space in general has changed the way we build products to be more rigorous and analytical about the features we create and meticulous in our execution with respect to our users. Congrats to the Amplitude team on their work up to this point and their execution that has lead to this IPO.