Blog Two years in and it's just getting good

Two years in and it's just getting good

Tristan Handy

Jul 05, 2018

Company News

This week marks the second anniversary of Fishtown Analytics. A year ago, I wrote One Year In: We're Still in Business. I had pretty serious impostor syndrome when looking back on the first year of Fishtown Analytics---I remember just being shocked that people were actually paying us, that growing numbers of awesome companies were actually using dbt, that we actually continued to exist at all.

That voice in my head is still there---I don't know that it ever will really go away! --- but it's quieter than it was a year ago. We've had an insanely good year: we've been able to consistently find new clients, deliver great work, hire and train great employees, and grow dbt's user base.

Here was our second year by the numbers:

• We worked with 46 distinct clients, delivering 329 two-week sprints. We crossed $1mm in run rate in Q1 and have continued to grow. We used dbt on every single project: it is at the very heart of our consulting business.
• We doubled our team size to ten: seven analysts and three software engineers. In the process, we've figured out how to take smart people with little analytics experience and turn them into exceptional full-stack analysts.
• We now have over 200 companies using dbt every single week. These companies are amazing early adopters like Casper and Wistia and SeatGeek, and they're putting dbt at the heart of their data stacks.
• We've had nearly 600 users register for dbt Slack. In the early days, Drew and I (mostly Drew) had to respond to every single question. Now, newbies get support from dozens of friendly long-timers.
• dbt's cloud interface, Sinter, now processes 8,000 jobs a week across 80 accounts.

Personally, I love my job more than ever. I still get to chat with every new dbt user who shows up in Slack, get to know the business of each client we have the opportunity to work with, and still get to spend a meaningful amount of my time doing analytics. I love that we're growing our impact as an organization and that I still get to see the difference that we're making in individuals' lives. It's rewarding.

We also have more freedom of movement than ever. And that's exciting.

We hired our first software engineer who is 100% dedicated to building dbt --- say hi to Jacob Beck! Adding a full-time dedicated engineer to an open-source project is a luxury that few projects ever have. We expect to ramp up product velocity meaningfully.

We also now finally have (some) time and (some) resources to dedicate to doing things like holding user meetups, building useful utility functions, and writing amazing user guides and documentation. Look for more of these over the coming year!

Last year I thanked our team, our partners, and our service providers. Year 2 has been all about the community. The dbt community helps us refine our ideas, find new users (and clients!), and spot our bugs. You're unbelievably friendly, helpful, and patient. And you're the key to our future.

We started Fishtown Analytics to change the way that analysts work. We believe that analytics is a subfield of software engineering, and that its tools and methodologies should mirror those used by software engineers. We set out to build the missing tools and to adapt the methodologies, and the dbt community is critical in this process. When you say you care about something, we build it. When you tell us we have something wrong, we listen. You've caused us to make meaningful shifts in the way we view certain aspects of both dbt and the analytics workflow. And you're the only proof we have that we're not crazy.

We could not do this without you. So thanks.

We hope you've enjoyed Year 2 as much as we have. We honestly believe that what we've built so far is just the beginning. We promise to continue to invest in dbt, its community, and the business over the coming year, and will rely on you to continue to spread the word :)

See you in Slack!

--- Tristan

Last modified on: Feb 27, 2024