Every startup founder knows that moment when a technical decision becomes a business breakthrough. For CrowdSnap, that moment came when they simplified their entire data architecture – and discovered that sometimes, less really is more.
“Some of my answers are related to our story and how TiDB helped us achieve profitability,” said CrowdSnap’s founder. He shared insights from the company’s journey as a B2B data analytics platform serving everyone from local governments to event organizers.
The Mission: Quality Data for Better Decisions
CrowdSnap, based in Sri Lanka, operates on a simple principle: “bad data leads to bad decisions.” They’ve built their platform around data quality, validation, fraud controls, and privacy – serving market researchers, sales managers, and business owners who stake their decisions on reliable data.
Their work isn’t small-scale. CrowdSnap processes government surveys collecting 200,000 to 500,000 records weekly (roughly 1-2 GB of data). They provide analytics for live events where organizers need real-time visitor insights – not tomorrow’s reports, but dashboards updating every 3 seconds during active exhibitions and conferences.
“We provide visitor analytics for public exhibitions & conferences and events,” the founder said. “Event organizers need to see visitor footfall, visitor analytics in their dashboards during the events.”
The Architecture Challenge: When “Best Practices” Become Bottlenecks
Like many startups, CrowdSnap began with what seemed like solid architectural choices:
- OLTP layer: MySQL storing raw survey responses
- ETL/Aggregation layer: Node.js background workers on schedules, materializing aggregate tables and caching views
- Reporting layer: Dashboards querying those aggregate tables
“We were storing survey transactional data in one table, then used a background service to create aggregates and then store them in separate reporting tables,” the founder said. “We followed that practice to improve UX with better loading times for analytics dashboards and reports.”
Most reports ran T+1 – overnight batch processing. For demanding clients, they managed 15-60 minute mini-batches, but it was a constant juggling act between data freshness and system performance.
The architecture worked, but it came with hidden costs: engineering time spent on maintenance, complexity in debugging data sync issues, and fundamental limitations on how quickly they could serve client needs.
The Simplification: One Database, Real-Time Everything
After exploring options including ClearDB and Microsoft SQL Server, CrowdSnap made a decision that would reshape their business: they chose TiDB Cloud Starter for its hybrid transactional/analytical processing (HTAP) capabilities.
“In addition to HTAP, we loved how simple the setup process was, along with other modern inbuilt features such as vector search and dedicated prompt support,” the founder said. “There was no limit to the number of concurrent connections as well.”
After Crowdsnap adopted TiDB, its new system enjoyed:
- No background processes
- No separate aggregate tables
- Real-time aggregation on the fly
- Dashboards powered directly from live data
The change eliminated two major system components: the background services layer and the need for dedicated servers for vector data storage.
“It was an architectural change,” the founder said. “We used to store raw survey data first, aggregate it, and then store it again for dashboards as background services. Now we use a single process to store and aggregate on the fly. No background processing.”
The Business Impact: When Technology Enables Growth
For CrowdSnap, architectural simplification translated directly to business results. Removing operational overhead meant more focus on product development and client acquisition. Real-time capabilities opened doors to premium clients with demanding requirements.
“As a relatively new provider I was expecting random breakdowns,” the founder said about their database choice. “But it was very reliable. Highly available.” This reliability meant fewer operational emergencies and more predictable service delivery.
The founder’s reflection on profitability highlights a crucial startup lesson: sometimes the best technology choice isn’t the most sophisticated one – it’s the one that gets out of your way and lets you focus on serving customers.
Looking Ahead: AI-Powered Insights
CrowdSnap’s simplified architecture is now enabling their next phase of innovation. They’re exploring AI capabilities that would have been architecturally complex with their previous setup.
“We are creating an AI-based prompting engine for SQL and AI data clustering with vector search capabilities,” the founder shared. Their roadmap includes sentiment analyzing, thematic clustering, speech, and video analyzing.
These aren’t just cool features – they’re solutions to real customer problems. These include automatically categorizing survey responses, finding patterns in research data, or providing instant insights from complex datasets.
Lessons for AI Startups
CrowdSnap’s journey offers several insights for other AI startups:
- Simplicity can be a competitive advantage – complex architectures aren’t always better architectures.
- Real-time capabilities can unlock premium markets – government and enterprise clients often pay more for immediate insights.
- Operational overhead is a hidden cost – time spent maintaining infrastructure is time not spent on growth.
- Future-proofing matters – choosing platforms that support emerging technologies (like AI/ML) can accelerate innovation.
CrowdSnap’s founder remains honest about areas for improvement, noting feedback already shared with the technical team about MySQL data dump support. He also sees opportunities in community building: “more networking sessions targeting early stage startups who actually need support. Like proper visibility, referrals, and quality networking programs.”
The Bigger Picture
CrowdSnap’s story isn’t really about database technology – it’s about making smart choices that enable business success. Their path from complex, multi-layered architecture to elegant simplicity shows that sometimes the best solution is the one that disappears into the background, letting you focus on what really matters: building great products and serving customers.
For founders navigating similar technical decisions, CrowdSnap’s experience suggests a simple question: does this technology help us serve customers better, or does it just add complexity? The answer might surprise you. CrowdSnap simplified their architecture and unlocked their next wave of AI innovation. Begin your own journey with a TiDB Cloud Starter trial.
