Indix Acquired: How Product Data Consumers Can Move Forward
Last week the Datafiniti team woke up to some big news — one of our primary competitors, at least for product data, had been acquired.
As a startup founder, I usually have a wide variety of emotions when I see news like this — a curiosity to how the deal went down, an excitement about the business model getting validated in such a big way, and (let’s be honest) a little envy.
In this case, however, I’ve grown more concerned as we observe how Indix is handling their exit. Unsurprisingly, we’ve received several requests from soon-to-be-former Indix customers about how they can make the move to our product API. What we’ve learned is that Indix has only given their customers 1–2 weeks to find a new solution, as their API will shut off sometime next week (February 18–22). In addition to this short timeframe, the Indix website has already removed all API documentation, making it near-impossible to ensure a smooth transition.
Let’s state this simply — that is no way to treat the champions that helped you expand your business. It is, however, Indix’s business decision, so it’s up to industry competitors, like Datafiniti, to help these customers keep moving forward.
How to move forward as an Indix customer
- Contact our team and explain your needs. Our sales and customer success team is prepared to provide a personalized introduction to Datafiniti and how it stacks up to Indix.
- Familiarize yourself with our product data schema. There are quite a few similarities between our schema and Indix’s, but also some differences. (I would provide a direct comparison, but that’s not possible with their website change.)
- Familiarize yourself with our product API. Unlike Indix and other solutions, our API utilizes a single endpoint to query data, rather than multiple endpoints for different data fields. This will likely require some changes to the overall flow of your integration, but the resulting code should be simpler. We have several code examples as a resource to help you get started.
- Work with our customer success team to ensure a smooth switch. Our team is standing by to help make this change as painless as possible.
What sets Datafiniti apart
One of the unique things about Datafiniti is that the company is entirely self-funded by me, the founder. Other industry competitors, like Indix, are funded by venture capitalists, which means they are under constant pressure to provide a return on those funding rounds. Until the business is profitable, the founders are more beholden to their investors than to their customers. With the Indix acquisition, we see the downside to this model — customers are left in the dark without data.
Rest assured, Datafiniti will always put both innovative technologies and customers at the center of our business. I started this company because I was enamored with the idea of a single repository of data enabling next-generation data-driven applications. Our customers over the past eight years have not only helped build Datafiniti, but have also made our team’s dream a reality. Our mission will always be to continue growing that dream.
If you are a soon-to-be-former Indix customer, we’re here to support and enable you in meeting your company’s goals. Come dive into this challenge with Datafiniti. You won’t leave disappointed.
