After using Firebase and Postgres, Copplestone built an open-source tool that gained traction on Hacker News. He chose Postgres for its reputation, growing developer interest, and community ownership, which he believed would help it keep improving. Calling Supabase an “open source Firebase alternative” made the product easier to understand and helped it take off.
How Supabase Became One Of The Fastest Growing DevTool Companies In The World
Speaker
Paul Copplestone, co-founder and CEO of Supabase, discusses how the company grew its open-source Postgres developer platform with a Y Combinator host.
Supabase took about a year and a half to earn its first dollar, with early customers often being high-growth startups. Copplestone said the team aimed to reduce the time to launch a database and insert a row from about eight and a half minutes to under a minute. They tracked what developers wanted by listening across communities such as Reddit, Twitter, and Hacker News.
In December 2024, Supabase saw a surge in database launches from companies including Bolt and Lovable. The team debated whether those applications would grow, then developed Supabase for Platforms so companies could launch and manage many databases. Copplestone said agents now launch most databases, and the product direction is moving toward CLIs, MCPs, declarative schemas, and branchable environments.
Copplestone said funding should serve the company’s work rather than redirect it, and that cash alone cannot ensure success. Supabase has 360 employees across more than 60 countries, with no offices and decisions documented online. He said that written history now helps agents retrieve old decisions and company principles.
Copplestone’s longer-term bet is self-driving databases that can handle operations such as security, patching, and recovery without waking someone up at night. He sees operating an application after it is built as a harder problem than generating the initial application.
Takeaways
- Make a product’s value clear in terms developers already understand.
- Measure how quickly users reach a useful result, then work to reduce friction.
- Listen to users across the places where they already gather.
- Treat funding as a resource for the work, not a reason to change direction.
- Document decisions so people and tools can find and apply them later.
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What was claimed 19
- usesinternal_tools
“Everything that's ever happened at Supabase has been written down on Slack and Notion.”
YouTube Verified2 sources· Talk, Job posting· archived
- foundedPaul Copplestone founded
SupabaseCEO“I’m Paul Copplestone, CEO and co-founder of Supabase.”
0:15inSupabase Vector: The Postgres Vector databaseYouTube Verified4 sources· Talk, Web· archived
- role atPaul Copplestone is co-founder atSupabase
“He's the co-founder and CEO of Supabase.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- ceo ofPaul Copplestone CEO ofSupabaseCEO
“He's the co-founder and CEO of Supabase.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- builtopen-source tool to deliver and host Postgres online
“Supabase began in 2020 as an open-source tool to deliver Postgres.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureSupabase: Open-source Firebase alternative
“Then we switched the tagline to 'open source Firebase alternative.'”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- builtPaul Copplestone built open sourcereal-time engine on Postgres
“After I wrote that real-time engine and put it on Hacker News.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: About 60% of every Y Combinator batch use Supabase
“About 60% of every batch use Supabase.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: $7.5 million ARR in the next year
“Then the next year, seven and a half.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: About $1 million ARR at the end of the first year
“The first year we exited with revenue on the order of a million in ARR.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureSupabase: Reduces database setup time to under a minute
“We decided we had to get that under a minute to improve time to value.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: 60% of databases are launched by an agent; likely closer to 90%, with millions launched monthly
“We can measure that 60% of databases are launched by an agent, but it's more likely 90%. That's millions every month.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates with
“The two main ones were Bolt and Lovable.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates with
“In December 2024, we saw we were getting DDoS'd by a bunch of companies launching all these applications and databases. The two main ones were Bolt and Lovable.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: Over 50 companies built on Supabase for Platforms
“Over 50 companies built on top of it.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- launchedSupabase launched Supabase for Platforms
“We launched it for everyone to get started.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricSupabase: 10 million developers
“By that stage, I think we were at maybe 6.5 million developers, and today we're at 10 million.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- usesrecords company decisions and history
“Everything that's ever happened at Supabase has been written down on Slack and Notion.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureSupabase: Aims to build self-driving databases that handle operations, security, and patching
“For us, it'll be self-driving databases: how to operate the database so you don't have to wake up at night.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
