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Leaving $1.5B Startup Behind for AI's Next Wave | Neon, Nikita Shamgunov

EO09:15Added Aug 31, 2026

Nikita Shamgunov is Co-Founder and CEO of Neon, a serverless Postgres platform revolutionizing database infrastructure. From founding SingleStore, a company that reached $1.5B in valuation, to establishing Neon with a fresh approach to growth, Nikita's journey demonstrates the power of embracing new challenges. He shares invaluable insights on navigating rapidly evolving technologies like AI and what it takes to stay adaptable in today's fast-paced

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

Transcript format

  1. Intro

  2. 00:00the world changed and the reason is AI
  3. 00:02ignoring that change and saying we set
  4. 00:04out to do this and therefore we going to
  5. 00:06do this just makes no sense and it's
  6. 00:08good to be honest with yourself when
  7. 00:11you're changing the plan communicate
  8. 00:13this to your investors board employees
  9. 00:15and then to yourself when you look at
  10. 00:17yourself in the mirror that the plan is
  11. 00:19now a new plan and that's okay
  12. 00:22understand how the world changes around
  13. 00:23you to take advantage of those
  14. 00:25opportunities now how do you take
  15. 00:27advantage of those opportunities the
  16. 00:28thing is that
  17. 00:31my name is Nikita I'm CEO and founder of
  18. 00:33neon this is my second company so my
  19. 00:35previous company uh single store at Peak
  20. 00:38it was valued at 1.5 billion neon is a
  21. 00:41database company and a developer
  22. 00:43platform where do people get databases
  23. 00:45today they either download them and
  24. 00:47install them themselves but neon says
  25. 00:49we're several as postgress we're saying
  26. 00:51don't worry about servers here's just
  27. 00:53the URL and the URL is all you need to
  28. 00:55know to build your application neon is
  29. 00:58expanding its Mission from being a
  30. 01:00database as a service to platform as a
  31. 01:02service so back as a
  32. 01:05[Music]

  33. 1. Left $1.5B, Start Again

  34. 01:23service I'm building databases all my
  35. 01:25life so at Microsoft I joined the team
  36. 01:27called SQL Server so when I joined
  37. 01:29Microsoft soft person all it's an
  38. 01:30incredible cheap but it's also a very
  39. 01:33very old and stable product I joined in
  40. 01:352005 and by the end of 2005 Microsoft
  41. 01:38released the product SQL Server 2005 the
  42. 01:41previous release of that product was
  43. 01:432001 during that time there were people
  44. 01:45that would come to Microsoft work on the
  45. 01:48product leave Microsoft and never ship
  46. 01:50software at all at the time I had a you
  47. 01:53know phenomenal offer from Facebook and
  48. 01:55then took a Facebook off offer and moved
  49. 01:58down to the Silicon Valley at Facebook
  50. 01:59look culture was very different from
  51. 02:02Microsoft and the speed at which things
  52. 02:04were happening was absolutely insane a
  53. 02:07lot of people just committed to the
  54. 02:09Facebook mission that engagement was a
  55. 02:11lot higher and once I experienced it I
  56. 02:13realized that this engagement exists in
  57. 02:15startups and it does not exist in larger
  58. 02:17companies naturally I was very
  59. 02:19susceptible for entrepreneurship and
  60. 02:21then when my co-founder Eric is like
  61. 02:23well shouldn't apply to why combinator
  62. 02:26and we got accepted so my previous
  63. 02:27company uh single store at Peak it was
  64. 02:30valued at 1.5 billion you know I spent
  65. 02:32there 10 years when I took overover
  66. 02:34single store we probably at a 7 million
  67. 02:36run rate I took it to North of 20 and
  68. 02:39then for the first time in my life the
  69. 02:41amount of operational work reduced
  70. 02:44temporarily I'm not the most important
  71. 02:46layer right so you can just remove me
  72. 02:48from the organization and the
  73. 02:49organization will probably do just as
  74. 02:51good and then added this to the craving
  75. 02:53of learning breath and make the plunge
  76. 02:55started another database company uh
  77. 02:57which is neon that's why I left single
  78. 02:59store and it kind of panned

  79. 2. Don't Launch Yet, Show Them First

  80. 03:04out you know it doesn't matter how good
  81. 03:07your technology is if there's no Market
  82. 03:09fit do people want your stuff the best
  83. 03:11feedback of course is people are willing
  84. 03:12to buy this product right but even
  85. 03:15before that you kind of want to to throw
  86. 03:17it out there and see that this product
  87. 03:20is needed by the world and then you put
  88. 03:21all this energy to makeing that product
  89. 03:23and making it a high quality product you
  90. 03:25want to validate this hypothesis how can
  91. 03:28you do that and how can you do it as
  92. 03:30earlier in the startup cycle as possible
  93. 03:32we started to do those things open
  94. 03:34sources one then we put together a
  95. 03:36website we were building in the open all
  96. 03:38the code was available on GitHub and
  97. 03:40moreover all the code was available on
  98. 03:42GitHub with a very permissive license
  99. 03:44and then about about 11 months in our
  100. 03:48the number of GitHub stars on that
  101. 03:50product started to go vertical meaning
  102. 03:52if you like plot them on the line the
  103. 03:54oldest people staring our repo which
  104. 03:56means they kind of interest in what
  105. 03:58we're doing and and that was our first
  106. 04:00product Market fit signal and then we
  107. 04:02put the website out we didn't put a
  108. 04:04password on it and we thought we were
  109. 04:06going to launch in about two months but
  110. 04:08between that time and the launch
  111. 04:10somebody leaked our website ne. on
  112. 04:13haacker news and there was a lively
  113. 04:15discussion you can go and find that
  114. 04:17people going and saying well this is a
  115. 04:18good idea or this is a bad idea and
  116. 04:20whatnot you know think about a product
  117. 04:22and a company like you creating your
  118. 04:24movie and then your website is a trailer
  119. 04:27right and that's how you kind of know if
  120. 04:29a movie is going to be well accepted by
  121. 04:32the audience or not because the trailer
  122. 04:33is out and you're starting to collect
  123. 04:35very early signal about the interest of
  124. 04:37an audience to that particular product
  125. 04:39or service I think that Tech is one of
  126. 04:42the many not that many good choices
  127. 04:45andte I think is fairly new and that's
  128. 04:48why a lot of them were available and
  129. 04:49neon was available as well so we bought
  130. 04:52that one as an advice for future
  131. 04:53entrepreneurs don't worry about it until
  132. 04:55your product hits product Market fit
  133. 04:57notion waso for for a long time and then
  134. 05:01now now everybody uses

  135. 3. Kill Your Original Plan

  136. 05:05notion here's Silicon Valley it's
  137. 05:08littered with technology that nobody
  138. 05:10wants or needs and that's totally fine
  139. 05:12because when you start you just don't
  140. 05:14know and it's good to be honest with
  141. 05:16yourself when you're changing the plan
  142. 05:19communicate this to your investors board
  143. 05:21employees and then to yourself when you
  144. 05:23look at yourself in the mirror that the
  145. 05:25plan is now a new plan and that's okay
  146. 05:27the world is is what the world is and
  147. 05:29the world changed then in technology the
  148. 05:31world changes quite often ignoring that
  149. 05:33change and saying you know we set out to
  150. 05:36do this and therefore we're going to do
  151. 05:37that just makes no sense but being
  152. 05:39formal about the steps that you're
  153. 05:41taking and the wise behind those plan
  154. 05:44that I think is a very useful and
  155. 05:46important thing to do and I kind of
  156. 05:48strongly recommend everybody who's doing
  157. 05:50that to be formal or semi-formal and it
  158. 05:52doesn't mean that you need to like write
  159. 05:54six-page documents it could be as simple
  160. 05:56as like 1 2 three kind of like Tesla
  161. 05:58right I'm going to build a rooster and
  162. 06:00I'm going to build a Tesla S and then
  163. 06:02I'm going to build a a mass Market Tesla
  164. 06:043 it could be as simple as this but then
  165. 06:06the world changes and then introduces
  166. 06:08for Tesla the opportunity to create full
  167. 06:10self-driving and that becomes kind of
  168. 06:13like a huge emphasis for the whole
  169. 06:15company so not only you need to be
  170. 06:16formal not only you need to be executing
  171. 06:19very very fast you need to look around
  172. 06:20the corners and then understand how the
  173. 06:23world changes around you to take
  174. 06:25advantage of those opportunities now how
  175. 06:27do you take advantage of those
  176. 06:28opportunities when you have your one 123
  177. 06:30plan you architect your team against
  178. 06:33your one 123 plan and then the world
  179. 06:35changes and something in this world
  180. 06:37becomes more important or becomes an
  181. 06:39opportunity and then because the team
  182. 06:41you build is the company you build is
  183. 06:43another thing that V Coosa says you
  184. 06:45might even not have the capacity to
  185. 06:48understand how to change the plan and
  186. 06:50even if you do you might don't have the
  187. 06:51capacity to evolve the company into that
  188. 06:54direction and therefore I think you must
  189. 06:57bring people from that world that you're
  190. 06:59locking and if the world changing in a
  191. 07:01particular direction try to get the
  192. 07:03people who are experts in the direction
  193. 07:05that the world is heading because if you
  194. 07:07don't have the right people around you
  195. 07:09you won't come up with a good

  196. 4. The Only Way Out is Up

  197. 07:13plan the hardest things are about people
  198. 07:16the other hard things are when things
  199. 07:17are just not working and when the things
  200. 07:19are not working you spend an
  201. 07:21extraordinary amount of energy to make
  202. 07:24them work and then they work for a
  203. 07:26period of time and then they stop and
  204. 07:28they stop because even either you know
  205. 07:30have a product Market fit or technology
  206. 07:32is not good or competition is kicking
  207. 07:34your ass and so you're burning a lot
  208. 07:36more money to make it work and it takes
  209. 07:38the highquality team to work through
  210. 07:41those moments ideally you work through
  211. 07:43them without losing your cool that's
  212. 07:45when then the stuff is tested and people
  213. 07:47lose patience people quit blame each
  214. 07:50other we had it all you know living
  215. 07:52through this once uh hopefully had made
  216. 07:54it a better founder and compared to
  217. 07:56single story me seems like L smoo
  218. 07:58sailing there's the length and then
  219. 08:00there's the growth it only feels long if
  220. 08:03the growth slows down or stops and then
  221. 08:06you start looking in the mirror and
  222. 08:08asking yourself is that what you signed
  223. 08:10up to do is like is this grind is ever
  224. 08:12going to stop or it's growing and in
  225. 08:15this year we grew over six times in
  226. 08:17revenue and when you look at this it's
  227. 08:19like w like the scenery really is
  228. 08:22changing and the stuff that we're doing
  229. 08:24now is like not the stuff that we were
  230. 08:26doing in the beginning of the year as
  231. 08:27long as we're in that state it's forever
  232. 08:30the fog of War usually clears as the
  233. 08:32company goes along and right now it's
  234. 08:34pretty thick with NE you know the
  235. 08:36company is clearly working there product
  236. 08:38Market fit our customers love it more
  237. 08:40and more of them coming every day onto
  238. 08:42the neon platform we reach into things
  239. 08:45that we almost didn't think we would
  240. 08:47even consider in the AI space and in the
  241. 08:49broader platform space and if back in do
  242. 08:51a service it's when the growth slows or
  243. 08:54the world moves on in a different
  244. 08:56direction or a competitor kicks your ass
  245. 08:58that's when the music stops playing as
  246. 09:00long as the music keeps playing I think
  247. 09:02it's it's just a lot of fun to keep
  248. 09:04dancing to this music