Hi all,
Just as the subject line says.
I won’t go into a long retrospective. Brian Sabino and I evolved some prior efforts into AppSheet in early 2014, Phil Garrett joined in mid-2014, we launched Oct 2014, and then it grew gradually — community, product features, team – until Google acquired us just before the pandemic exactly three years ago. Through this period, I had a simple perspective — our team exists only because our customers choose to use our product. Those customers make a leap of faith to spend their time and energy on an early-stage product from an unknown startup company. We had no right to their faith. So we should respect it humbly and do everything to deserve it. If we cannot live up to their expectations, at least it should not be for lack of trying our best.
So that’s what we tried to do. Over the years, I have exchanged thousands of messages in the community forum, in support threads, via email, and even via SMS with so many of you. Anything that I ever learned about this product and this business happened through those interactions. Any confidence I ever had that we could create something useful came from the encouragement we received from you.
At acquisition, we had 45 employees, 1 product, a small amount of revenue, and our own unique value system and culture. Google has 180,000 employees, many products that reach billions of users, and a long and proud engineering and product culture. The goal of the acquisition was to ensure a stable long-term path for the product, and the ability to reach and impact customers around the world. So it was critical that AppSheet integrate successfully into Google. This applied to the product, the team, the management, the code, the engineering process, the business model, product support, and everything else. As some of the old-timers in this community observed, this scale of change is neither easy nor seamless. A lot of things have changed, some for the better (product stability, for example) and some not for the better (product velocity, for example).
For me, the last three years have been a gradual transition from hands-on intense engagement at the start to hands-off observer and occasional advisor over the last year. To be completely honest, I am not well-suited to being an observer. I care deeply and have strong opinions about many things, many people, and many principles related to AppSheet. Yet, a changing of the guard is essential for the long-term stability and health of a product. I have worked closely with most of the people on the current AppSheet team. They bring a combination of passion and professionalism to their work, challenging and complex though it may be at times. It is their product now as much as it has been mine, and they are its shepherds going forward.
I hope to start something else and go through the startup journey again. More details down the road when I have some clarity. I’ll continue to watch with pride as all of you do amazing things with AppSheet. If there is any way I can help you, please do not hesitate to let me know. If any more people write books about AppSheet, I’ll be the first to pre-order. If any more people build non-profits or businesses using AppSheet, I’ll feel proud to have played a small part. You are on the frontlines changing the world, and it was my privilege to witness that over the last decade.
And If any of you is ever visiting Seattle, please do let me know and let’s meet in person.
I wouldn’t say I didn’t saw this comming sooner than later. I didn’t had the pleasure to met you before Google took over but I hope I’ll have it in the future.
