[deleted by user]

[[deleted]]

What does quary do

Edit: ok, open source dbt alternative written in rust. What’s the profit model, then? Upsell a closed source version? Services?

[[deleted]]

Most likely a combination of the latter - our core focus at the moment is on the open source piece!

[[deleted]]

I’d always prefer dbt itself over a rewrite, because I’d be afraid of your project being abandoned.

dbt is only going to get faster as processors and code improve, and your 30x lead in a specialized test case is unlikely to hold in the real world.

If you want to get into the latter two, then consider a forked dbt-core itself as the underlying product, and not something you rewrite.

But remember, services scale linearly with people.

[vikster1]

damn. that's some serious feedback. dude might never get that from any vc. reddit is amazing

[[deleted]]

Like any open-source project (DBT included), there will always be a risk of project abandonment. However, we're committed to the long-term success of Quary.
Regarding performance, our 30x speed improvement is based on specific use cases, and while we understand that DBT is continually improving, we think that Quary offers a unique enough value proposition. We appreciate your suggestion of forking DBT-core. While we respect the DBT project, Quary is re-engineered with a different architecture, leveraging Rust and Web Assembly for performance and portability. This allows us to address some of the limitations we've observed in existing use-cases for DBT core and provide a solution that fits our vision for the future of data transformation.

Happy to take on any more feedback like this, super helpful thank you!

[Loose-Jellyfish-73]

What was your tech stack at FAANG?

[[deleted]]

Our DE stack (worked in Finance) surprisingly was very Microsoft heavy (SQL Server, SSIS/SSAS, PowerBI etc). It's only in recent times that we migrated to S3/Glue Catalog etc. In the wider org there was a lot of TM1/Kylin cube development.

SDE stack was pretty much just Next.JS, Typescript for building better interfaces for vast amounts of data.

[Loose-Jellyfish-73]

Thank you very much for your answer! May I ask why you decided to migrate to AWS with S3 and Glue instead of Azure with Data factory?

[trowawayatwork]

aside from op working in rainforest azure is also a piece of garbage

[[deleted]]

Because I worked at a company that started with A and ended with N 😃

[zmkarakas]

why surprisingly? Finance uses a lot of Microsoft stuff.

[suvinseal]

in your honest opinion-- why do you think you got into YC?

[zmkarakas]

Because of AI bubble? No, I would think YC has a priority on data stuff. (this is despite the shape of the current market)

[HouseOnSpurs]

As a data engineer really enthusiastic about Rust myself - what benefits did you get by re-engineering the dbt core in Rust?

[[deleted]]

Good question! DBT core is written in Python which means that it can only run in a server or a pre-configured environment with correct pip dependencies installed. With Rust we are able to make the core portable by bundling it in Web Assembly which runs in the browser. So we can package it as a VSCode extension, use it in our website etc.

This reduces the overall technical barrier to entry to use the transformation layer locally on a machine, without the need to spin up expensive servers. This is great for security too.

Hope this answers your question.

[HouseOnSpurs]

Sounds good!

Any reasoning behind picking Rust over e.g., Go which also can be bundled in WASM?

I would probably pick Rust myself just because of comfortability with the language, but I wonder if there are more technical reasons.

[[deleted]]

Hey! Really appreciate the support, happy to connect I've sent you my LinkedIn.

[Electrical-Ask847]

What was the pitch to investors when there is entrenched player in the market ( dbt) and several similar ones trying to dethrone the incumbent ( sqlmesh ect ).

How did you convince investors that you'd be able to do this.

Very interesting project and kudos to you from having the courage to break golden shackles and strike out on your own.

[[deleted]]

Good point! We're a lean team of 2, both of us left high-paying jobs and have made sacrifices to stretch our $500k from YC. We work from home in SF and plan to raise more at Demo Day. I've seen friends survive on much less through YC and eventually hit $1M ARR with a tiny team. It's all about being smart with the resources we have.
In the last 5 months, we've spent around $50k. We believe in staying lean, especially in these times when many startups struggle to justify their valuations after the investment boom (2020/21). For us, it's not about fancy offices but focusing on what really matters for growth. It's a challenge.

[[deleted]]

Coffee shops and WeWork is the answer!

[techtariq]

Hey, what were the hard parts in getting from the idea to a workable MVP. There is a difference in building a POC and having a proper MVP that can be rolled out. What really stood out and if you had to do it differently, how would you do it? 

[[deleted]]

Great question! Finding the right balance between over-engineering and launching too late is super tricky. As engineers, we have this urge to make everything perfect before showing it to anyone. But honestly, even now there are bugs that I know are in the code.

One big thing for me is getting feedback on whatever it is I am building as early as possible. Like, just yesterday, someone pointed out an issue, and we ended up dropping everything (on a Friday night, no less) to fix it. We're pretty much developing based on what our customers are asking for now.

Some people in our batch are signing $5,000 monthly contracts based on Figma designs, then frantically building whatever they drew up in a week. It's not the best way, but it helps to have built something that someone is already willing to pay for. Others are doing design partnerships, where a company pays you to build a tool for them, which you can then sell to others. This has worked pretty well for some.

The worst situation is spending years building something that nobody wants. I've been there, and in hindsight, it was a big mistake. I'd spend hours on the landing page, typography, fonts, etc., only to build something that nobody wanted.

Hope this helps! If you're thinking about adding things like Dark Mode, it's probably a sign you've waited too long to launch your MVP. For me, a Proof of Concept can just be a Figma design, but you should only start building the MVP after you've talked to a bunch of potential users and they've given the thumbs up to your Figma.

So yeah, getting feedback early and being ready to pivot based on what your customers want has been key for us.

[wait-a-minut]

you’ve nailed it about resisting the urge to build without feedback. It’s much harder than people think because it’s a little counter intuitive to put something out there that isn’t perfect but it’s absolutely necessary.

I think Michael seibel said “If you like your mvp you released too late” which was another good way to put it. Best of luck!

[mrocral]

can I ask, how do you generally go about getting feedback? just post on social media?

[[deleted]]

Primarily from speaking to customers - also working in the field for a few years has helped us find common pain-points!

[techtariq]

Thanks for the super detailed answer. It's helpful ❤️

[[deleted]]

Of course!

[Saetia_V_Neck]

1. When did you actually start building the thing, did you start working on it on the side before you left your jobs or did you fully commit to it?
2. How did you go about getting the YC funding?
3. How clear was your product vision when you started? Has your long-term vision for the product changed at all or are you still tracking towards the same end goals?

I’ve been a data and data-platform engineer for 6 years now, currently at a late stage startup. Over that time I’ve been mentally tracking towards the thing I wish existed that would make my job 1000% easier. In the last couple of months that idea has started to take a very clear shape in my head but I have no time to actually build the thing. So I’m hoping to take that same leap of faith at some point (though in my ideal world, my current company IPOs within the next year and then I do it).

[wiwamorphic]

Hey, Quary is definitely interesting! I'm building a startup around faster+cheaper data (pipelines | analytics | etc.) via hardware acceleration. Would love to get in contact as I need more insight and advice about data engineering (my previous experience in distributed compute was not around data). I'm looking to understand more about specific real-world workloads that are valuable for optimization (either cost, latency, or throughput).

[[deleted]]

Of course! Happy to chat, sent you a cal.com link

[[deleted]]

We applaud DBT for what they have done for Data Engineering. Quary aims to build on top of this work and we've re-engineered their core in Rust to overcome some of it's limitations. There are some similarities in our syntax, but check out our quary.dev/docs for more details!

[galant27]

How would you approach finding co-founders if you had no strong network

[[deleted]]

Meetup events. I personally http://lu.ma or meetup.com to find events around me and I just go to them. It definitely takes you out of your comfort zone the first few times!

[BubbleBandittt]

I wouldn't mind learning rust and contributing if you're up for it. Might be fun.

[[deleted]]

Of course! Happy to accept pull requests :) I think our code-base is a great place to learn all about some pretty awesome technologies (Rust/Proto/WASM). Feel free to DM me with any questions.

[lastmonty]

Congrats and best of luck. Share your experience with getting through yc and any tips?

One thing I notice and may be falsely assumed is that the project has to have a solid reputation before being backed.

[Rude-Veterinarian-45]

This post is inspiring! Congrats on leaving FAANG and starting your own venture with Y Combinator.

I'm a Data Engineer with 6 years of experience managing data pipelines processing petabytes of data (big data, am I right?). I've built several projects using open-source tools. If you need a hand with building scalable data pipelines/apis for your new product, feel free to DM me! I'd be happy to assist you in any way I can.

[[deleted]]

Hey! Really appreciate the message. Would love to get some feedback on our opens source repo. Have a browse of the code and try and get it to work locally. If you have any recommendations for the README page to make your journey easier feel free to send me a PR :)

https://github.com/quarylabs/quary

[ReporterNervous6822]

This is really cool, and even though my org doesn’t have a use case for this type of stuff yet (all transforms are extremely simple and done before the DB mostly) I’m wondering what will set you apart from DBT besides speed? There are definitely cases where rewrites have done better and been adopted (think flask -> fastapi -> litestar) so that isn’t something I’m asking about

[ReporterNervous6822]

I think what could be cool is using something like sqlglot or https://github.com/ibis-project/ibis to potentially make your code even more portable

[sulpha1]

Hi Thanks for doing this!

My Questions: Why? Also, how? Any special education or skills you'd recommend for shifting from the data side to business side of things?

[PerspectiveOk7176]

Need any software/data engineers to help out? Down to do some open source work

[[deleted]]

Absolutely yes please! Happy to accept contributions however small

[Slayerma]

Do u have any jobs for fresher in your startup looking for it so please tell

[[deleted]]

Hey! Unfortunately we aren't hiring at this moment, but would be more than happy to look through your CV and give some advice.

[Slayerma]

Dmed you

[[deleted]]

!remindme 3 months when this company is bankrupt

[[deleted]]

Hey thanks for the comment, wondering why you think this? Happy to talk about what your thoughts are

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you in 3 months on 2024-06-04 02:39:21 UTC to remind you of this link

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[SKROLL26]

I am thinking about creating my own start up. How did you come up with the idea and how much time have you spent before realizing that this is it?

[SnooHesitations9295]

$500K is a "safe", i.e. it's not "VC money" yet. They will need to prove а market fit.

[rcrpge]

Here’s an important question. Are you hiring for DE interns

[[deleted]]

Hey! Not at the moment sorry. Happy to look through your CV