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I am developing Stripe but for Data

1 points by alegeaa ↗ HN
Hi, I am writing the Stripe for data. This is probably my 100th project trying to build a useful product and I am glad to say all have failed so far but I am not giving up. I believe I will someday build a product people want to use and need. Please do read through my project thesis below and tell me if I should continue working on it.

So, I want to make a play for data. Sor of Stripe for data. Aka. The data infrastructure for the internet.

Companies especially startups can offload their data needs to us they can store their data with us, and then we provide API endpoints and apps on top of their data.

I know, you might think db as a service like MongoDB, or backend-as-a-service like Supabase and Fireside, or storage as a service like AWS, etc; but this is different.

Just like companies stopped worrying about setting up payments and payment infra when Stripe came out, I wished companies, with my new project, will stop worrying about database and db infra. In fact, I wish, with my project, they wont have to write a single line of database/data code anymore, except maybe to connect to APIs.

Your thoughts (through comments will be much appreciated).

11 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 44.5 ms ] thread
neximo64
Why would someone want to put their data with your service? Its never been hard to use a database to begin with, honestly even easier than an API call.
alegeaa
Got it. Im just exploring ideas. Companies put their data in third-party servers like AWS all the time.
neximo64
With AWS you're not using a saas. They cant even display the data you store with them on their ui console because they can't access it (unless you use DynamoDB)
alegeaa
I do appreciate your input though. Thank you.
pestatije
i see it working as a data provider, not as a db replacement...the client uploads the raw data, you apply some ETL(extract, transform, load) to it and make it available to third parties
alegeaa
Okay, got it. I think this makes sense.
mmarian
It's been tried before - eg Quandl. They were acquired by NASDAQ, but I'm not sure how much the founders got from it.
gus_massa
> they wont have to write a single line of database/data code anymore, except maybe to connect to APIs.

I don't undersstand what you are triying to do. Replace SQL with your own language/API?

alegeaa
Yes, this is exactly what I was planning. But it does sound like I am reinventing the wheel.
gus_massa
Other piople has reinvented the wheel before, so there is a chance, but you must find why your method is much better.

Perhaps you can ensure that everything is escaped correctly and programers don't have to worry about Bobby Tables https://xkcd.com/327/

(I once saved everything as a text file, because the number of entries was small and I was not sure about escaping correctly.)

(I remember one webpage that says "please dont use these characters in the name ..." The list looks too similar to the special chars in SQL ...)

alegeaa
This does makes sense. I will think more about this idea. if it indeed makes sense.