What is SQL Schema Explorer?
It’s a database schema & data browser that can follow foreign keys and draw diagrams that I spent years building because I wanted it to exist and I thought it might make a good first product.
Why charge?
I’m pretty busy these days but I like working on software and building things like this, to justify the amount of time that goes in I can no longer just have it as a time-consuming hobby. I’ve also been learning about entrepreneurship as a possible extension or next step from time-for-money contract-programming services.
The idea was that if I could get enough yearly subscribers to the software then I could get balsamiq-like success and focus on making it better and better for the people using it.
Why open source now?
I got plenty of interest and interactions by my standards, more than I’ve ever had for something I’ve published; but I never got more than one good friend paid up beyond a generous trial. The conversations I had with people were full of enthusiasm for the idea but not for parting with money to buy it. One particular conversation was very positive until the idea of putting the theoretical purchase in front of the manager was raised and then suddenly it didn’t seem viable at all; which I think speaks volumes. Useful, but not useful enough to risk any political capital to get it, even for a pretty insignificant amount of money. I then had a coaching call with Justin Jackson and as part of that he suggested putting it to one side. Up to this point I’d been unable to leave the idea alone; it had been something I really wanted to exist. I’ve always worked with relational databases, and this seemed like a painful gap. At this point I had finally added every feature that I’d ever dreamed it should have, and the intrinsic motivation to just build for the sake of building was waning, and without the demands from paying users for more features it’s hard to justify continuing to pour hours in even if it is on the train.
At this point there were 100 people on the mailing list (drip sent my first bill!), one paying user/fan (Hello David! Many thanks!), and zero MRR (monthly recurring revenue). I’d spent a bit of money on hosting (I’m still paying digital ocean to keep the demo site up).
I didn’t want to let down the few people who had really liked it by having it just vanish into the ether like so many failed startups. Fortunately this is downloadable and installable software, not a SaaS that would have to be shut down. I’ve always liked the open-source ethos, and given this was no longer a direct financial opportunity it made sense to me to give it away freely under a copyleft license.
It feels like having this as a portfolio piece given I sell coding for a living won’t do me any harm, and it makes it easier to take with me to client projects, where I can use it to help them improve their database.
Schema Explorer for client work
Here’s some things I’ve been using schema explorer for to help my contracting clients
- Finding missing foreign keys without looking up complex
pg_schemaqueries - Analysing data in tables and sharing screenshots with the teams
- Sharing screenshots of the generated diagrams to improve team understanding
- Using it as a tool for discussing database design
- Finding records needed for troubleshooting and debugging
- Improving my mental model of the database structure
Tell me more
It’s now A-GPL which requires sharing any modified source code even if you are just letting users access the generated site. If I’m giving my years of hard work for free, I think it’s only fair to require people to contribute their improvements back to the community.
You can find the source code at https://github.com/timabell/schema-explorer
Feedback
Please do get in touch if this sparked a thought or interest. Just a simple email will do tim@timwise.co.uk
Thanks for listening.