[bleonard]

Thanks for checking us out! Co-founder here, happy to answer any questions. There is so much to do in this space, but we’re excited to be getting started.

No engineer wakes up in the morning excited to sync data to Marketo, so we started there - `npm install` and so you can get back to building the core product. We make data self-serve for your non-technical colleagues and we handle all the exhausting integration stuff you don’t want to think about (API nuances, rate limiting, retrying, batching, etc).

[mariushn]

First, thanks for providing the `npm install` way to run it. Too many apps require Docker and that's it.

Question: Could we use Grouparoo to replace mixpanel? Would we need to build the client side to collect events and dump that into Grouparoo?

[bleonard]

At the moment, it depends what you are using Mixpanel for. If it's about collecting events and storing them, then we have a JS web library [1] for that and we'll happily store them in our database and let you do things with them. It will handle anonymous users and convert/merge them when they log in.

[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/@grouparoo/client-web

[brainbag]

How does this differ from something like Stitch (other than being open source)? We are in the planning stages of a data warehouse upgrade and Stitch seems to fit our needs, but your product looks great. I'm curious how it compares.

[bleonard]

We think open source is important, of course, because it has cost and control ramifications, but I'll stay focused.

Stitch looks to be doing ELT in the fivetran-ish space. Their "sources" are lots of tools and their "destinations" are warehouses. Grouparoo can have sources like Mailchimp (did they read the mail), but Mailchimp is more likely to be a "destination" for us.

This is because we are doing more like ETL to those tools. In our current case, the "T" is property and segmentation definitions, often done by end users like marketers. So that notes that our users also include non-engineers. There's less burden on engineers after setting up Grouparoo because the person in charge of Mailchimp are doing those definitions.

[ccleve]

How does this compare to Piesync?

There are many tools that do one-way integration from source to destination. Very few do real two-way sync. Is Grouparoo designed for that?

[bleonard]

Piesync looks cool. I don't see any databases on their list, so it looks to be mainly syncing between SaaS apps. We are open source and running in your own cloud as more of an ETL process.

Grouparoo is set up with sources and destinations. The most common sources are likely to be databases/warehouses and the most common destinations are tools like Marketo/Zendesk/etc. That being said, Zendesk will likely be a source one day to pull user info into Grouparoo (number of tickets created, lastEmailedAt, etc). Databases can already be destinations (write back out the member of the VIP group to Postgres, in addition to sending it to Marketo and Zendesk).

I'm not sure all of that is two-way sync or not, but it's certainly round-tripping the data. If you really want a full duplication in your data warehouse of a SaaS tool, I'd look into Stitch or Fivetran at this point. Then, Grouparoo will happily read that :-)

[polskibus]

What is your monetization strategy? How are you going to turn Gruparoo into a profitable business?

[bleonard]

We are doing an open core model. At some point in the future, we'll have an enterprise edition.

The philosophy I've heard (maybe from Hashicorp?) is that the core should solve the data problem and the enterprise edition should solve organizational problems. So the source and destination and the syncing data and all that will stay in the core. At some point, we can do single-sign on, change, change management, GDPR support, compliance, etc in the enterprise version.

[mythshaker]

So, what's informed your making this open source?

[bleonard]

For us, open source is about who has control of the data and the integrations. I don't think the world needs another SaaS marketing tool.

In the past, you needed a large, focused SaaS vendor to be able to store a million users and their properties/events. AWS and friends have caught up and now it's easy. Because of that, we can take that data into your own environment and use it to increase control, customization, privacy, and compliance. The cost is significantly better, too.

Open source is a good way to do that because you know what you are running and can fit it to your needs. Engineers tend to like open source and we've seen interest in extending it. There are thousands of things to connect with, both inside your infra and outside with vendors, and open source makes that possible.

[psadri]

Does grouparoo need to deal with GDPR? If so, how is it handled?

[bleonard]

Good question!

GDPR is about giving users control and visibility over their personal data and controlling personally identifiable information.

Grouparoo is an open source app that runs in your own infrastructure (AWS, etc) and it does segmentation of users. The effect of that is that less info leaves your world and goes to third parties. For example, you used to send an address and lifetime value to Braze so that you could make a “high value Bay Area customers” group over there. Now you keep that in house.

On top of that, whatever information is leaving now has a chokepoint, so you can stop sending a user to Braze (and everywhere else) if that is the requirement or return all the information about them easily if that is the ask.