When Amplitude launched Mixpanel was the big game in town. They were first to market, had raised more money, and had a well-known brand. VCs passed on Amplitude because it seemed like just another Mixpanel.

Today, Amplitude is a $1.5B public company—they're about 2x bigger than Mixpanel. Mixpanel's marketing spend helped educate the market. But before buying an analytics solution most businesses do market research. That's when they'd find out that Amplitude had several features Mixpanel lacked—and they were much, MUCH cheaper.

It's not cool to win on price, but it works. It worked for WalMart, CostCo, Shein, and it worked for Ampltiude.

Here's the story of how it all happened.

Why you should listen:

How to use cheaper prices to win in a crowded market.
Why you often need 12 hour days to win in Startupland.
Why even massive $1B+ successes often have trouble raising early rounds.
How pivoting can often be the key to finding real market pull.
Why big competitors can often be a huge tailwind.
How to use storytelling to raising bigger rounds.

Keywords
startups, entrepreneurship, analytics, Amplitude, pricing strategy, market positioning, data processing, voice recognition, technology pivot, competitive advantage, market dynamics, differentiation, product-market fit, storytelling, fundraising, startup challenges, customer relationships, analytics tools, business strategy, entrepreneurship

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:13) A cool demo-- but a bad business
(00:18:36) Why funding was so hard
(00:25:43) Why lower prices are a big differentiator
(00:40:50) Working 24/7
(00:50:35) Product Market Fit

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

S3 E18: "Block Box 8: Our convo with Guy Weinberg & Barbara Breebaart!"