Founder Story: Paul Copplestone of Supabase
From Kiwi Coder to Southeast Asian Entrepreneur
Paul Copplestone's tech journey began far from the startup hubs of Silicon Valley or even the bustling cities of Southeast Asia. Born and raised on a farm near Kaikoura, New Zealand, Copplestone's early life was steeped in the practicality and work ethic of rural living. However, his passion for technology emerged early, leading him to dive into coding as soon as he left school at 18.
"I really sort of fell in love with tech," Copplestone recalls. This love affair with technology led him to start contracting while still in university, taking on various projects that honed his skills and expanded his technical repertoire. After graduation, Copplestone's career took him to Australia, where he worked for a hedge fund and later Accenture, gaining valuable experience in project management and tech development.
However, the corporate world didn't satisfy Copplestone's entrepreneurial spirit. In a twist of fate that would alter his career path, a simple phone call opened the door to the world of startups. "I had signed up to work for the Australian government on a contract," Copplestone explains. "And in that one week [while waiting for clearance], I was on a phone call with, or my friend was on a phone call with his friend who was in Malaysia about to start the startup. And he said, well, why don't you just come help me with my startup?"
This serendipitous moment led Copplestone to Malaysia, where he co-founded his first startup, ServisHero, in 2015. ServisHero, a platform connecting home service providers with customers, gave Copplestone his first taste of the startup world and the challenges of building a tech company in Southeast Asia.
The Unconventional Path
Copplestone's journey took another turn when he moved to Singapore to participate in the Entrepreneur First program. It was here that he met his future Supabase co-founder, Ant Wilson. However, Copplestone's path was far from straightforward. He actually dropped out of the Entrepreneur First program to start another venture, Nimbus for Work, with a former colleague from ServisHero.
This period of Copplestone's career demonstrates his willingness to take risks and follow opportunities, even when they deviate from the expected path. It also highlights a key trait of successful entrepreneurs: the ability to recognize and seize unexpected opportunities.
While working on Nimbus for Work, Copplestone encountered a technical challenge that would eventually lead to the creation of Supabase. The team needed to build a chat application with functionality similar to WhatsApp, including features like voice messaging. They initially used Google's Firebase but found it lacking in flexibility and performance.
To solve this problem, Copplestone devised a solution by attaching serverless functions to Firebase's Cloud Firestore database, enabling the team to replicate data into a Postgres database. This workaround sparked the idea for what would become Supabase: an open-source alternative to Firebase built on Postgres.
A Vision Born from Personal Experience
The genesis of Supabase is a classic example of a founder solving a problem they personally experienced. Copplestone's frustration with existing tools led him to envision a better solution. He pitched the idea to Ant Wilson, who was persuaded by Copplestone's vision and joined as co-founder and CTO in January 2020.
The timing of Supabase's founding coincided with the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic, adding an extra layer of challenge to launching a new venture. Despite this, Copplestone and Wilson pressed forward, writing their first lines of code and raising a $100K pre-seed round from angel investors.
Initially, progress was slow. By April 2020, a few months after its launch, Supabase only hosted eight databases in total. However, a pivotal marketing decision would soon change everything.
The Power of Positioning
In May 2020, Copplestone made a seemingly small change that would have a massive impact on Supabase's trajectory. He altered the company tagline on the website from "real-time Postgres" to "the open-source Firebase alternative".
This shift in positioning proved to be transformative. Within three days of the change, Supabase scaled from eight hosted databases to eight hundred. The power of clear, relatable positioning was evident, and it set the stage for Supabase's rapid growth.
The community's response was equally impressive. When early users posted a link to Supabase on Hacker News with the title "an open source Firebase alternative", the post received over 1,100 upvotes. This community validation was a clear signal that Supabase was addressing a real need in the developer ecosystem.
Building the Right Team
Copplestone and Wilson's approach to building the Supabase team was as unconventional as their journey to founding the company. They leveraged their previous experience in building developer tools and assembled a roster of technical talent, many of whom came from the open-source community.
One key hire was Steve Chavez, a maintainer of PostgREST, which Supabase uses to automatically generate APIs from Postgres schemas. In fact, many of Supabase's first ~50 employees came from the open-source community.
This hiring strategy had a dual benefit. Not only did it bring in top technical talent, but it also meant that Supabase's first marketing and non-technical hires were developers themselves. This technical expertise across all roles resonated strongly with Supabase's user base, creating a deep understanding of user needs throughout the organization.
The Fundraising Journey
Supabase's growth quickly attracted investor attention. After joining Y Combinator's summer 2020 cohort, the company's trajectory accelerated. In December 2020, Supabase announced a $6 million seed round led by Coatue, with participation from Mozilla and Y Combinator.
The funding rounds continued as Supabase's user base grew. In September 2021, the company raised a $30 million Series A, followed by an $80 million Series B in May 2022. Most recently, in September 2024, Supabase secured an $80 million Series C round, bringing their total funding to $116 million.
This rapid succession of funding rounds speaks to the strong investor confidence in Supabase's vision and execution. It also provided the resources necessary for Supabase to expand its team and accelerate product development.
Innovation Philosophy
Copplestone's approach to innovation and product development is deeply rooted in open-source principles and a focus on developer experience. "We try to use existing open source tools if we can, and if they don't exist, then we'll build them ourselves," Copplestone explains.
This philosophy extends to how Supabase interacts with its community. The company takes a "product led growth" approach, even with enterprise customers. Copplestone believes in the power of letting developers try the product themselves: "We don't do any outbound sales. We just let people sign up and use the product. And if they like it, they upgrade."
This approach has led to organic growth and strong user loyalty. Supabase has become one of the most commonly mentioned products by makers on Product Hunt and one of the most redeemed Y Combinator "perks," with nearly a third of the most recent YC batch using it.
Industry Impact
Supabase's impact on the developer tools industry has been significant. By providing an open-source alternative to Firebase, Supabase has given developers more control over their infrastructure while still offering the ease of use that made Firebase popular.
The company's focus on Postgres as a foundation has also influenced industry trends. As Copplestone notes, "Postgres is becoming the default database for a lot of companies." Supabase's success has demonstrated the power and flexibility of Postgres, encouraging more developers to adopt it.
Moreover, Supabase's approach to building in public and maintaining a strong open-source community has set new standards for transparency and collaboration in the dev tools space.
Legacy and Future Vision
As Supabase continues to grow, Copplestone's vision extends beyond just competing with Firebase. He sees Supabase as providing "all the tools you need to get started: a Postgres database, authentication system, file storage… the works."
Looking to the future, Copplestone is particularly excited about the intersection of AI and developer tools. Supabase has already made moves in this direction with features like pgvector, which enables vector similarity search in Postgres.
Copplestone's journey from a farm in New Zealand to leading a company at the forefront of developer tools innovation is a testament to the power of solving real problems and building strong communities. His story embodies the global nature of today's startup ecosystem and the potential for transformative ideas to come from unexpected places.
Closing Thoughts
Paul Copplestone's journey with Supabase is a masterclass in identifying a market need, positioning a product effectively, and building a community-driven company. His path from New Zealand to Southeast Asia to founding a global, remote-first company underscores the borderless nature of today's tech industry.
Copplestone's success with Supabase demonstrates that with the right idea, execution, and timing, it's possible to challenge even the most established players in the tech industry. His story is a reminder that some of the most impactful companies are born not from a desire to start a business, but from a genuine need to solve a problem.
As Copplestone himself puts it, "If you're going to build your next startup, you'd probably choose us." This simple statement encapsulates the value proposition that has driven Supabase's success and points to a future where developer empowerment and open-source collaboration continue to shape the tech landscape.
References
- https://research.contrary.com/company/supabase
- https://cloudflare.tv/shows/founder-spotlight/founder-spotlight-paul-copplestone/2aX69Dgb
- https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/10/15/supabase-open-source-firebase-with-paul-copplestone/
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s2-e3-paul-copplestone-co-founder-ceo-at-supabase-on/id1303020386?i=1000662685972&l=ru
- https://www.diaspora.nz/p/s2-e3-paul-copplestone-co-founder
- https://github.com/taranjeet/awesome-gpts
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtxoJUZDgIU
- https://fountain.fm/show/542376
- https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/supabase
- https://feeds.supercast.com/feeds/W3zkQhAZynDYySRtJYsTzYjN