Schnettler regrets attempting a huge vision instead of shipping simple tools iteratively
Colleen Schnettler · Episode 757 | TinySeed Tales s4e5: Founder Breakups, Crushing Fai... · Feb 13, 2025 · at 13:15
Colleen Schnettler reflects on the strategic mistakes that led to product delays and the eventual breakup with her Hello Query co-founder Aaron.
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“I think originally when we had talked about this idea, once we, you know, got rid of our consulting arm we had talked about starting, which is SQL to CSV and iteratively building. And for reasons that I'm still kind of unclear, I couldn't get Aaron to do that. And I think part of it was he felt, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he felt like that wasn't well aligned with his vision. And so I feel like we should have shipped something faster. It should have been SQL to CSV. Instead of going with this huge vision where we're going to solve all your problems.”
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Schnettler: Developers do not pay for proprietary software gems
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“I am not a big believer in the open source to paid model for a small team. I mean, I think if we had raised a lot of money, it might be a great path, but What we're trying to build, like that, that just isn't a model that was really working.”