Great work! It's funny that YC funded Segment as well as two direct Segment competitors (RudderStack is the other one, though I think they initially started with a different idea an pivoted to that afterwards), though given the size of YC this is probably expected and Segment is probably large enough to "deserve" some good smaller competition.
As someone who also builds an open-core product (though not directly modeled after an existing closed-source product) I really hope this kind of business model will become more accepted.
I don't believe that YC funded RudderStack, but they funded Segment indeed! It's not uncommon. If I have to guess, every batch or so have at least 2 companies directly competing with each over
hey! Co-founder of Freshpaint here. Yes, we're YC-backed along with Segment, so you're probably thinking of us. YC does often fund startups working on similar things.
As someone who also builds an open-core product (though not directly modeled after an existing closed-source product) I really hope this kind of business model will become more accepted.