[HN Gopher] UiPath on track to be the best-ever European seed in...
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UiPath on track to be the best-ever European seed investment
Author : imartin2k
Score : 38 points
Date : 2021-02-15 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sifted.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (sifted.eu)
| dang wrote:
| Interesting - although there have been 20+ submissions about
| UiPath:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| the current thread is the only one with any comments:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's a pretty frothy / hype-driven area, so astroturf makes
| sense. Now you've got me curious about the submitters...
| dang wrote:
| Oh I didn't mean to insinuate that! (which would be against
| the site guidelines btw:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
|
| I was just curious about a $35B company, arguably the most
| successful European tech investment of all time, never having
| been discussed on HN before. There have been comments though:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
| swyx wrote:
| i think maybe because it doesnt target developers - it can
| often replace them, or at least primarily interface with
| crappy legacy systems that developers are completely
| uninterested in. but yeah i'd expect more discussion for
| how unique a story this is, esp with the Europe angle.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Absolutely!
|
| Here's how conversations typically go -- Dev: "Why are
| you using this? Why don't you use X?" Business: "Are you
| willing to write interface code to {legacy system}?" Dev:
| {crickets} Business: "Well, RPA it is then."
|
| To dang's point, apologies for the insinuation, which
| doesn't seem to be borne out by the submitters' post
| histories anyway.
|
| A more supported hypothesis is as you said: "This isn't
| something that a lot of HN-type devs care about or see."
|
| In the same way we don't get many posts about Oracle,
| VMware, or SAP here, relative to their actual
| deployments.
| isp wrote:
| My rule of thumb:
|
| - If there's some boring business process (that usually
| involves copy-and-pasting)
|
| - Which you just _know_ could be automated easily if only
| there was an API, but there isn 't
|
| - And everyone who's ever asked about an API has been
| told it's too difficult/expensive/etc to create an API
| (e.g., for an ancient legacy system)
|
| ... then there's the RPA opportunity.
|
| In my opinion, it's not popular on HN for the same reason
| that legacy systems aren't popular on HN.
| paganel wrote:
| They're just not that exciting, to be honest, in a way
| they're the SAP of the 21st century. Their HQs are just a
| block away from where I write this comment, I have a former
| work colleague who works for them as a director of
| development or some such, but for me as a HN-er it very
| rarely crossed my mind to want to work for them.
|
| To be honest I have close, non-IT friends working in the
| corporate world who are scared of UIPath and what it could
| mean for their jobs going forward, but, again, those
| friends are not HN-ers.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/dnJax
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Also possible to Command + . to prevent the popup from the
| loading.
| walshemj wrote:
| You not counting that bank manager in Cambridge that funded Acorn
| (aka ARM)
| loandigger wrote:
| Asshole design on sifted, can't read the article without joining.
| sammm wrote:
| The pop-up is a little sneaky to be honest. I am quite enjoying
| the content sifted has been putting out recently so I decided
| in this instance I would create an account.
|
| I then tried to view the article again and then the pop-up
| appears again with different wording, letting you know it is
| actually a paywall, so creating an account isn't enough.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I just used Firefox's reader mode. Half the time it cuts
| through modal paywalls, if they loaded the content behind.
| bballer wrote:
| Yeah can also just inspect, delete a few overlays, and then
| remove the overflow from the body element and your in.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I've worked in this space for ~10 years at this point, and
| happened to have a hand in picking UiPath as the RPA solution for
| a major US company.
|
| At the time of the shootout, I'd never heard of it.
|
| After testing it (and soliciting test user feedback), their
| genius is simple -- don't suck in a category of products where
| everything else sucks.
|
| To use an example more might be familiar with, they're the
| Salesforce, JetBrains, or HashiCorp of RPA.
|
| They don't _do_ anything amazing, but they 're executing like a
| modern software company. And all of their competitors (Automation
| Anywhere, OpenSpan/Pega, etc.) are still in the upjumped-inhouse-
| ugly-consultant-software mindset.
|
| AMA if you're curious.
|
| _Edit:_ As to why they 're valued at $35B, consider that their
| customer base is "Every company with IT too screwed up /
| incompetent to deliver new features in a timely manner."
| isp wrote:
| I had a hand in picking UiPath a few years ago for a major UK
| company.
|
| Your comment hits the nail on the head.
|
| I like to draw comparisons between UiPath's software and Excel:
|
| - Highly underrated by most people in IT
|
| - Super fast initial learning curve to start doing something
| useful
|
| - Yet also possible to use for years without learning all
| aspects
|
| - ... and just as easy to make a huge unmaintainable mess in
| the wrong hands
| qeternity wrote:
| > Edit: As to why they're valued at $3.5B...
|
| You've got the decimal place wrong. It's $35 billion
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Fixed! Thanks. I glanced at the wrong valuation quote when
| composing: "That means that in six years the three VCs will
| soon have turned $1.6m into at least $3.5bn"
|
| Either seems an astonishing number for "we click things on
| the screen" software.
| qeternity wrote:
| Indeed, a success story of simply "don't suck at thing X".
|
| Fortunately Thing X actually has a lot of value to a lot of
| people. I enjoy seeing this story far more than Facebook et
| al.
| staysaasy wrote:
| That's a very interesting assessment, thanks for typing this
| up!
|
| What are the most important use-cases that you see UIPath
| solving? I'm familiar with what they do at a high level, but
| I'm not sure who they're really most useful to in practice.
|
| Also curious who their typical buyer is - eg functional heads,
| IT, eng, or someone else...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The typical use case is "As a business user, I want to
| automate my existing workflow or create new functionality
| through automation. I have little or no ability to change
| anything (either due to vendor- or IT-apathy). Therefore my
| input, output, and applications-used are effectively frozen."
|
| Typically, applications will be a mix of web (potentially
| back to IE-11-only type stuff), Windows (including whatever
| old UI libs might have been used), and mainframe (via
| emulator).
|
| None of these have modern-style APIs (except for mainframe
| via the surprisingly foresightful HLLAPI).
|
| So tl;dr, "I want to do new things, but can't change
| anything." An example would be insurance companies having to
| quickly alter their processing, in a matter of months, due to
| the Affordable Care Act.
|
| Using the med insurance example, an average claims processors
| will have to interact with a claims system (3rd party Windows
| app), workflow management / audit system (3rd party Windows
| app), possibly core data systems (mainframe and/or legacy
| DB), and 1+ ancillary unsynchronized data systems (e.g. med
| review, communication portals, external processors for
| various functions). All of this to do a "pay the claim"
| process. For 100+ claims a day.
|
| So that "stack" is your average automation target, which you
| typically want 100% automation coverage against, or it isn't
| viable.
|
| The typical buyer is almost _always_ on the business side.
| Either a business VP or Director, or someone under the CFO.
|
| CFO-initiated projects usually focus on cost saving by re-
| onshoring low-value work previously offshored to India et al.
| Data entry into legacy systems, etc.
|
| Surprisingly, another key reason is usually "increasing
| ability to own and quickly change processes" (vs simply
| headcount reduction)! But organizations are waking up to the
| peril of that's-too-legacy-to-change components.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I'm curious how this looks in reality. They install a tiny
| client on their machine that follows their clicks,
| evaluates what's on the screen and then does more clicks?
|
| Then once it's made the first time, it runs on their
| machine again. Or it runs on some central server?
| isp wrote:
| Think about it as a programming language but with
| integrated support for automating user interfaces.
|
| Typical workflow for an "unattended" automation (which
| runs on a headless VM in a data centre somewhere) would
| be:
|
| - Run "Developer Studio" on a dev machine
|
| - Write "code" (in a visual programming language) to tell
| the software how to interact with other user interfaces
| (there are various different methods for this: via
| browser plugin to interact with the DOM in a web browser,
| or using screenreader APIs for native Windows
| applications, or even via OCR-like methods if all else
| fails)
|
| - Save the automation "source code" (it's a visual
| programming language, based on VB.NET/C#, and the
| underlying source code is XAML files), ideally add to
| version control
|
| - "Publish" the new automation to a central
| "Orchestrator" server - which is responsible for pushing
| the new automation code to other headless VMs, and
| coordinating execution
| rubiquity wrote:
| Sounds like a market begging for more competition.
| cosmie wrote:
| > Edit: As to why they're valued at $35B, consider that their
| customer base is "Every company with IT too screwed up /
| incompetent to deliver new features in a timely manner."
|
| And that's not even the totality of their potential customer
| base. It just happens to be their primary focus (and pricing
| model) right now.
|
| There are a _huge_ number of repetitive processes /workflows
| that simply don't bubble up to the purview of IT. They either
| don't directly intersect the systems centrally managed by IT,
| don't warrant the cost/time/effort required for IT to get
| involved, aren't formally documented or known by IT in the
| first place, or IT simply doesn't provide any official channels
| to engage with them for automation-related support.
|
| UIPath's current market positioning and pricing scheme is
| geared solidly at business cases built off of "ROI of RPA vs.
| IT modernization efforts". With a focus on automating singular
| processes occurring at a high frequency. Which alone is enough
| to support their valuation. But they could also trivially
| expand their positioning to include "power user" oriented
| pricing plans and move into that area of the market as well,
| where singular users (or teams) have a high quantity of low
| volume workflows.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I talked with them a bit about it at various times. To me,
| their core value proposition should be "make IT's life
| easier."
|
| An adversarial relationship with every company's IT
| department is a rocky road.
|
| When with minimal product pivoting, they can be the savior of
| IT. Don't bill yourself as "replace IT," do so as "rapid
| prototyping."
|
| What's the biggest pain in the ass about internal product
| development? Getting users to explain what they do and tell
| you what they want built.
|
| By giving them the ability to self-execute, you invert that.
| "Mock up what you want in UiPath. Run it for 6 months to a
| year to tweak it how you want it. _Then_ come to us and have
| it implemented properly. "
|
| Cleaner, more accurate specs (because they come from actual
| production); business does value discovery on their own; IT
| doesn't have to deal with hotball "this needs to be built in
| the next 14 days" demands trashing their strategic timelines.
| dicomdan wrote:
| Wikipedia says it's headquartered in New York City.
| johnnycerberus wrote:
| Moreover, I think this is also the first unicorn ever in post-
| communist Romania. Tells much about the advantages of a free
| market over a planned one.
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