superglue

What do they actually do

superglue is an open‑source and hosted integration tool that sits between your code and external systems (APIs, databases, file stores). It parses API docs and credentials to generate production‑grade connectors, maps source data into a schema you define, enforces that schema at runtime, and moves/transforms data through scheduled jobs or workflows. It’s available as a self‑hosted proxy and as a hosted app with enterprise options like SSO/SAML, compliance support, and paid support/SLAs (homepage, GitHub, pricing).

Teams use it to replace brittle scripts/cron jobs, create reliable connectors to legacy or obscure systems, and run ETL/migration or multi‑step API workflows with retries, logging, and monitoring. When upstream APIs change, superglue can detect schema drift and attempt automatic repairs or produce a deterministic patch for an engineer to review. The product also includes agent tooling that turns plain instructions into executable multi‑step workflows across systems, while keeping observability and guardrails in one control plane (YC profile, homepage, FAQ).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Developers / integration engineers maintaining scripts and cron jobs: They spend time fixing connectors that break when an API or auth changes and lack easy debugging or retries. superglue auto‑generates connectors, enforces schemas, and surfaces deterministic fixes (homepage, GitHub).
• Platform / SRE teams responsible for reliability and observability: They need retries, monitoring, and clear failure handling instead of silent cron failures. superglue provides scheduling, logging, retry logic, a control plane, and self‑host options for auditability (homepage, FAQ).
• Data engineers running ETL, migrations, and syncs: They struggle with mapping inconsistent schemas, deduplication, and keeping pipelines running when sources change. superglue offers schema mapping, deduplication, repeatable workflows, and drift detection (homepage, docs).
• Enterprise IT teams working with legacy or obscure systems: Off‑the‑shelf connectors often don’t exist, and they need auditable, self‑hosted solutions for sensitive data. superglue provides an open‑source proxy and enterprise features like SSO/SAML, compliance support, and custom SLAs (GitHub, pricing).
• Product or ML teams building enterprise GPTs and AI agents: They need a deterministic execution layer so agents don’t corrupt data or call the wrong APIs. superglue positions itself as the control plane for agentic workflows with validation, retries, and reliability benchmarks (homepage, benchmarks).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Convert active OSS users and YC/early‑adopter contacts into short pilots, where the team builds the first connector and fixes a high‑pain cron/migration issue; turn those into quick technical references (repo, site).
• First 50: Publish concise case studies from pilots, run targeted outreach to data/platform/SRE teams with a time‑boxed migration or reliability audit, and host developer office hours/webinars backed by benchmarks and docs (benchmarks, docs).
• First 100: Scale via partners, marketplace listings, and a small enterprise sales motion; package self‑hosted/compliant installs (SOC2/SSO/SAML) and sell pilots with SIs and agent‑platform partners while listing the hosted app in relevant marketplaces; use case studies/ROI to qualify mid‑market buyers and upsell support/SLAs (pricing, site).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

superglue targets enterprise spend on integration platforms (iPaaS), data‑integration/ETL tools, and API management/control planes, with emerging demand from agent/GPT execution layers (Fortune iPaaS, Grand View iPaaS, Fortune API mgmt).

Bottom-up calculation:

Deduplicating overlaps among iPaaS, ETL/data‑integration, and API management yields a practical TAM of about $20–40B today, expanding toward ~$70–100B over 5–10 years as automation and AI increase integration needs (Fortune iPaaS, Mordor data integration, MarketsandMarkets data integration, Fortune API mgmt).

Assumptions:

• Category overlap (iPaaS, ETL, API management) is significant, so TAM is conservatively deduplicated rather than summed.
• Growth projections use blended analyst outlooks over 5–10 years; ranges reflect differing definitions and CAGRs across firms.
• Agent/GPT execution is treated as upside not fully counted in traditional integration categories.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Airbyte: Open‑source data connector platform focused on syncing data into warehouses/lakes with a large catalog of prebuilt connectors; differs from superglue’s on‑the‑fly connector generation and agentic multi‑API workflows.
• Pipedream: Developer‑friendly integrations and serverless workflows built around event‑driven steps and a component marketplace; overlaps on ad‑hoc workflows but not on deterministic schema‑mapped connectors with automated repair.
• Workato: Enterprise automation platform with curated connectors and governance aimed at business workflows; superglue emphasizes code‑centric control, long‑tail/legacy systems, and programmatic connector generation/healing.
• Fivetran: Managed data pipelines for analytics destinations with maintained connectors; focused on turnkey analytics ingestion rather than arbitrary app workflows or agent execution control.
• Prefect: Workflow orchestration with scheduling, retries, and observability; competes on reliability/monitoring but doesn’t build connectors from docs or provide the same self‑healing connector generation.