[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Livedocs (YC W22) - Live data in your doc...
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Launch HN: Livedocs (YC W22) - Live data in your documents, without
code
Hi HN, I'm Arsalan, founder of Livedocs (https://livedocs.com).
Livedocs is a no-code analytics tool that lets you build simple
reports with live data from tools like Segment, Stripe, and Google
Analytics, without writing code. Here's a video of how it works:
https://cln.sh/6NKYiG. Working on early stage teams in the past, I
got tired of tracking and reporting even simple metrics. My team
would resort to either esoteric hacks, VBA scripts, or simply
nagging data guys for metrics--even simple ones. Tracking metrics
from multiple tools is a pain in the neck. That's when I realized
most teams rely heavily on software that already offer some sort of
embedded analytics on their dashboards. All they needed was a way
to compose data from these dashboards into a single place.
Livedocs lets non-technical users track common metrics like
retention, MRR, etc by connecting directly to tools via OAuth. IMO,
until teams or projects hit a certain size or success, writing SQL
queries or hopping between different dashboards to track simple
metrics is overkill. So we let these users build live reports and
documents using pre-built blocks that connect to their tools
directly. For example, solopreneurs, super-early stage startups,
and small businesses use us to keep track of metrics like MRR,
churn, web traffic, and product analytics like retention,
activation, etc., from Stripe, Google Analytics, and Segment. See
here for what that looks like:
https://livedocs.com/doc/1e2e4001-ed5a-44ad-8d13-806deafdde9....
To pick another example: side projects! I have so many side
projects, each with their own Google Analytics, Stripe, and
sometimes Twitter account that I lose track of how each is
performing. Now I just set up a quick report on Livedocs for each--
like this:
https://livedocs.com/doc/46a38473-e525-4482-aa46-4da4a77cf18....
We call these "live documents" because they are like a document
with live variables, graphs, etc. The closest comparison would be a
dashboard, but way more flexible--e.g. as editable as a document.
I also wanted these documents to be easy to replicate for other
projects and quick sharing, so I built a templates feature into
Livedocs. Commonly used templates are listed here:
https://livedocs.com/templates. You can easily clone one and
connect it to your own data sources to get started, so please feel
free to try it out. We charge $30/month and offer a free 14 day
trial (without a card). I'm keen to hear your feedback!
Author : arsalanb
Score : 119 points
Date : 2022-03-19 16:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (livedocs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (livedocs.com)
| rdxm wrote:
| you can do this today with Jupyter Notebooks. Can you provide a
| value prop vis-a-vis Jupyter Notebooks? (aside of course from the
| raging dumpster fire of lack of curation in JN re vulns...)
| swyx wrote:
| you really gonna be this thread's "you can do that with rsync"
| guy?
| arsalanb wrote:
| Yes! _I_ could probably do this with Jupyter Notebooks, but
| Livedocs is built for, say, a growth or sales role who want to
| track a simple metric from Twitter or Stripe, and might not
| have the time to learn Jupyter and it's nuances.
|
| Notebook styled tools were the inspiration for Livedocs, for
| sure.
| serialjoy wrote:
| Love this!! Does this actually replace the entire data stack for
| early teams? except Segment I suppose
| arsalanb wrote:
| Thanks! Yes! We realized that early teams don't even have a
| data stack -- they just rely on dashboards built into the tools
| they already use. The problem is, there's a dashboard on every
| tool, which means these teams have to hop between multiple
| tabs/dashboards to get a complete picture. We've built a way to
| view these metrics in a single place.
|
| Segment doesn't have a built in visualizing layer, and relies
| on destinations to handle that (like Mixpanel, etc)-- but even
| there, non-technical operators are lost because they have no
| mental model of how to transform a stream of events into
| something like, say, "Activation rate" or "Retention curve". We
| connect to Segment and have pre-written the SQL required to
| generate these commonly used metrics.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Looks great but being able to use data from an API or SQL query
| is essential for any use-case I have right now.
| arsalanb wrote:
| We're looking to add support for connecting with APIs and
| databases (and passing SQL queries to those DBs) visually so
| larger teams can invite their data engineers to write queries
| for them.
| lewisjoe wrote:
| This is a really good idea! The power of editable documents
| combined with custom blocks that react to live data.
|
| Quick question: how do you plan to compete with existing
| platforms like Notion and Coda? For them, this could be just
| another block element type that they could ship with minimal
| effort?
| arsalanb wrote:
| Thanks! We're trying to build a more complete data solution.
| The pre-built block types are the first step, which let you
| setup basic metrics. We want to build connectors with custom
| APIs, databases, and even data warehouses, and then let teams
| invite data engineers to setup metrics for non-technical users
| in their team to use.
| amerf1 wrote:
| Super cool tool! I noticed the Twitter template for example was
| only for your own account. Is there a plan in the future to
| create one for tracking lists or hashtags?
| arsalanb wrote:
| Yes! You can track public hashtags, URLs, and even handles
| using the "social listening" block on the Twitter integrations.
|
| Check out this template which has an example -
| https://livedocs.com/templates/4cc353b1-f771-4e07-ae68-2f3d8...
| gkoberger wrote:
| This looks great!
|
| I applied to YC almost a decade ago with a company called
| LiveDocs. Didn't get in at the time (I applied again w/ a
| different name), but glad there's finally a LiveDocs in YC :)
| arsalanb wrote:
| Appreciate it! I'm a huge fan of ReadMe!
| brycelarkin wrote:
| How is this different from Coda? Our team has a Coda doc that
| connects to Jira and GitHub to pull live data on open
| tickets/PRs.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Coda is a slick tool for building interactive documents!
|
| We're focused on allowing non-technical folks to track metrics
| and data from third party tools (although we do also support
| pulling live data on tickets/PRs from Github too, as that is
| something that most operators, particularly founders at early
| stage co's are interested in tracking to see dev team activity,
| open bugs, etc)
| u2077 wrote:
| Awesome, I'm actually spending the weekend building a personal
| project that's very similar. Right now it goes from 3rd party api
| > database > website that presents all the data with chart.js
|
| I've spent quite a few hours on it and am nowhere near done.
| Looks like this will save people some serious time. 1-click live
| data entry is a really powerful selling point.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Super cool! There are some tricky challenges to solve under the
| hood to make one-click data entry work, for sure! Curious to
| learn what prompted you to build this..
| u2077 wrote:
| I'm using 3 different apps for time tracking, expense
| tracking, and calendar. Existing solutions don't integrate
| well with my niche setup.(for example, time trackers with
| billable hours don't work for my side-project with variable
| revenue) Because I need granular data control and can't
| justify a subscription for a small-ish project, I decided to
| take the plunge.
|
| The end goal is to combine all 3 into one place that I have
| complete control of. (And make a bunch of cool looking graphs
| to look at)
| arsalanb wrote:
| Cool! That's my favorite part of this format of "live"
| documents -- based on what integrations exist, the output
| might be an entirely different tool. What tools do you use
| for time and expense tracking?
| u2077 wrote:
| A couple of small and simple iOS apps after being
| frustrated with more enterprise based solutions.
|
| Thiro [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thiro/id1555982483]
| a basic time tracker that does grouping and reports
| right. The only thing it lacks is billable hours.
|
| Emerald [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/emerald-money-
| journal/id143705...] A super simple expense tracker that
| does most things right, but unfortunately has a few bugs.
| It's the only one I could find available that is privacy
| friendly and doesn't have bloat.
|
| Both of those apps are made by indie devs and have no
| subscriptions.
|
| In addition, I am trying out
| timeator[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timemator-time-
| tracking/id1458...] which has the right idea for how I
| want revenue and time tracking to be integrated.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Ahh, these are interesting! None seem to have an API
| though :(
| soederpop wrote:
| This is one of the goals I have for https://active-
| mdx.soederpop.com https://github.com/soederpop/active-mdx. With
| this you can turn a collection of markdown into a graphql
| database and more.
|
| let me know if you need help!
| arsalanb wrote:
| This looks interesting! Thanks for sharing!
| thedays wrote:
| Looks great! Integration with Excel seems to be missing and is
| what I'd need to use it. Do you have any plans to integrate Excel
| soonish?
|
| Beyond that, integrations with CRMs like Salesforce could also be
| really powerful for a too like this.
|
| Also, have you considered integrating with a tool like Zapier
| rather than integrating directly with each app to accelerate the
| number of apps you're integrated with?
| arsalanb wrote:
| Hi! I'm trying to nail the UX of excel. We already support
| Google sheets, but excel IIRC is a file-based format? Do you
| imagine re-uploading the latest version of the spreadsheet in
| order to update the document?
|
| Re: CRMs, we currently work with smaller teams who use CRMs
| like Hubspot (we have a Hubspot integration), but salesforce
| could be interesting too.
|
| Zapier I believe doesn't give you data in a structured format,
| rather a series of "events" as and when they happen. This is
| workable, Ofcourse, and I will look into it today.
|
| Thanks for the feedback!
| Aeolun wrote:
| One it's in Office 365 you may be able to query Excel from
| elsewhere with an API (or load the whole sheet, not sure).
| arsalanb wrote:
| True! That's a great idea! We tried with Airtable for a
| proof of concept, but Airtable is not issuing metadata API
| tokens anymore..should try with Office 365
| dmolot wrote:
| Thought I could hop on here and plug my YC company,
| hotglue. We help people building products offer native
| integrations much more quickly, just thought it would be
| worth mentioning if you're exploring building more
| integrations.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Checking it out now!
| thedays wrote:
| Hi, I wouldn't want to have to upload the latest version
| every time. For it to be a livedoc, I would expect your
| system to be able to automatically update from an Excel file
| saved online in OneDrive for Business. This is what the apps
| integrated with Excel on Zapier seem to do as well - see
| https://zapier.com/apps/excel/integrations
| ankit219 wrote:
| Looks good. In early stage teams it's easier to teach teams the
| tool you use because this way they can dive deeper. The teams I
| worked with were keen to learn GA and analytics as it helps them
| for personal growth.
|
| At another startup, over the weekend, we connected tableau to our
| DB (which was also pulling in mixpanel via API) and scheduled
| reports to be sent to every employee.
|
| I like the idea of live data which can be a dashboard of sorts,
| as to how I can see myself using it. Connect your data source (eg
| segment) -> Use prebuilt queries -> it gives an overview
| dashboard which can be sent to everyone as a report in email
| every morning -> If people are reading it, makes your job easier.
| (of course, use it as a live source for wherever and whenever
| people open it.) makes all the meetings and discussions easier.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Thanks! We're trying to find the sweet spot between flexibility
| and ease of use, by adding features where you could dive deeper
| into metrics if you are an advanced user.
|
| BTW, you can also setup Livedocs documents to automatically
| send to a slack channel and/or by email daily.
| Callusing wrote:
| I am utterly shocked it has taken this long for something like
| this to come around. Direct integration of data flows into
| document processing has been an obvious next-step-up for any kind
| of scalable document production/management framework for at least
| the past few years. The amount of time I have to spend on a
| regular basis inputting, updating, and managing information that
| is presented in documents but compiled in other places has me
| apoplectic on a weekly basis.
|
| I'll tell ya, at the moment, this isn't quite where I need it to
| be, because every team I work in/with is entirely Drive / GDocs-
| centric, and so what I'll need in the long-run to roll it out is
| a native integration within that interface. I'd love for GOOG to
| just buy y'all and integrate that capability into their rapidly-
| growing Workspace capabilities. Until then, watching with great
| interest, may play around with it a bit.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Agree! The horrors of updating documents at a previous role is
| what led me to build Livedocs!
|
| We're trying to work with Google Docs currently. We're aware of
| the huge switching cost that comes with adopting a new editor,
| and we're trying to integrate with Drive/Gdocs. Will keep you
| in the loop!
| watersb wrote:
| > _I am utterly shocked it has taken this long for something
| like this to come around._
|
| Agreed.
|
| The default output of a spreadsheet these days should be an
| embedded web component. Live graphs, linked to data source,
| edit and customize.
| uncomputation wrote:
| This is also being worked on in other areas with varying
| degrees of focus:
|
| - https://coda.io/
|
| - https://patera.io/
|
| - https://grid.is/
| cloudking wrote:
| Great idea! Since you're already integrated with Google sign on,
| you should consider building a Workspace app and get into the
| marketplace: https://workspace.google.com/marketplace
|
| You could integrate directly into Drive so customers can create
| LiveDocs from Drive, and get marketing exposure in the
| marketplace.
| arsalanb wrote:
| We're already working on this! It's our goal to reduce the
| barrier to entry to using Livedocs by taking the docs to where
| your work already happens :)
| cloudking wrote:
| Awesome, good luck! Consider Microsoft's ecosystem too, large
| market.
| pattu777 wrote:
| Congrats on the launch. This looks super cool.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Thanks!
| mdolon wrote:
| Congrats on the launch, this looks great! I've been looking for
| something like this for sharing metrics internally. Will give it
| a try.
| arsalanb wrote:
| Thanks! Feel free to reach out to me a(at)livedocs.com if
| you're looking for an integration that would be useful to you.
| Happy to hack something together for you :)
| ohashi wrote:
| You chose to call them live documents and seem to veer away from
| dashboard idea. It's cool to export 'reports' to whatever channel
| I'm interested in communicating over, but I wonder if you plan to
| offer a more Dashboard type view as well? I could see building a
| custom dashboard with your tools and have it look less
| 'documenty' for lack of a better word.
| arsalanb wrote:
| We did consider that, and have something in the works although
| it's not top priority right now. I'm curious what would the
| distinction be? What would differentiate it from a document
| with only graphs etc and no text?
| ohashi wrote:
| I haven't tested the product, but watching you work with it
| felt like a document editor in terms of layout. It felt like
| you were constrained to that view and it seemed designed
| around delivering documents in that view. A dashboard I feel
| has a different layout and I would be logged in to
| see/manipulate it to get what I want.
|
| Prebuilt reports vs interactive custom data exploration
|
| Does that make sense?
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