Code Story podcast with Ben Dowling: Where IPinfo came from, and where we’re going

Ben Dowling, Founder and CEO of IPinfo, joined Noah Labhart on Code Story Podcast to talk all things product road mapping, scalability, and more.

In 2013, IPinfo’s founder, Ben Dowling, developed several different side projects. And each of these projects relied on IP data in one way or another. At that time, gathering geolocation insights was a painstaking process that looked something like this:

• Downloading a file
• Uploading it to a server
• Getting it setup
• Something would go wrong
• Backtracking and fixing the error

Then multiply this process by four or more different projects and servers where something could (and inevitably would) go wrong.

The result was that Ben built an API that he could call from multiple servers and projects. Then if anything went wrong with the data, he only had to fix it in one location… as opposed to four.

And that begins IPinfo’s story. Without even knowing it, Ben resolved a pain point plaguing developers around the world.

Developing a roadmap for product growth

Within a short time, this super simple API was answering millions of requests. That’s when it became apparent how many use cases used IP data - things Ben never even imagined when he developed this API one evening.

The challenge, then, was to create a roadmap for sustained growth. Initially, there were so many demands it was nearly impossible to keep up. But Ben discovered that users needed this product. They were willing to put up with some half-baked user experiences because this IP to Geolocation product solved so many pain points.

Once he and his team solved the serious issues - like infrastructure issues that wouldn’t allow the API to scale past a certain number of users - there were so many paths for product development. Here’s how he weighed his options and developed a roadmap for growth.

• What features or improvements are we getting the most user requests to develop?
• Is this useful for a lot of other users and customers?
• How well do we think we could develop this feature, user experience, or dataset?
• Do we already have these datasets?
• How does it fit into the big picture of where we’re going with IPinfo?

Example 1: Not top priority

For example, early on some customers wanted a better UI. But, at that time, focusing on UI could slow product growth and didn’t offer a great return on investment. Most users were just happy to have a free product that powered and fit into their projects.

A few years later, though, UI did become a priority and did offer significant ROI. For instance, in 2020 our team developed a more user-friendly dashboard. And then in 2021, we launched the official IPinfo CLI.

Example 2: Top priority

On the other hand, some users asked for access to datasets like IP to Company or IP to Mobile Carrier. Within a short time, IPinfo’s team launched these datasets, and here’s why.

• We had a lot of feedback from customers asking for these datasets
• We had a lot of customers who couldn’t find this specific data anywhere else
• We already had some of this data
• We could do a really good job delivering these datasets
• These datasets fit into the big picture of IPinfo’s growth

These are just a few of the ways Ben and the team at IPinfo developed a roadmap that made improvements at the right time and kept IPinfo growing at a healthy rate.

Keeping our products scalable

IPinfo was designed to scale growth. By way of example, our rate-limiting infrastructure was designed to scale up. Because this API was built with users in mind, by default it would opt to give customers more requests rather than fewer.

Sometimes, though, we planned for scale in a way that slowed our growth. As we were growing, we shifted over to AWS to decrease latency while increasing availability in different regions around the world.

The problem was that AWS added a lot of complexity, it was slowing down our growth, and was expensive. Added to all this, our customer research revealed that users didn’t even care about this improvement. And when we shifted to Google Cloud, there were no issues, no complaints. No one even noticed.

More recently, we kept IPinfo scalable by migrating from Google AppEngine to Google Kubernetes Engine, giving our team more control over the infrastructure. If anything, Ben keeps IPinfo a step ahead of problems caused by scale so users can develop reliable use cases.

Standards that direct IPinfo’s future growth

There are two standards that guide our future growth at IPinfo. The first is improving our data. And the second is making IP data more usable.

Why we’re committed to improving IP data

When IPinfo started in 2013, Ben didn’t initially focus on developing proprietary datasets. The reason for this was simple: Customers and users simply wanted a simple API that gave quick access to IP data.

As IPinfo grew and developed paid plans, however, customers began to contact Ben with location discrepancies. But IPinfo’s data feeds at that point were derived from sources like Maxmind. So when users reported geolocation errors, Ben would respond, recommending that they contact these providers with data discrepancies.

That’s when Ben started wondering if IPinfo could do a better job producing accurate IP data. Could IPinfo solve these data problems our users were reporting?

So Ben started researching what kinds of datasets customers wanted. From there, he began building out a team of data scientists and data engineers whose entire focus is on improving data accuracy.

The result is that our data now rivals other industry leaders in the IP data space. And our team regularly monitors, cleans, and improves our data with the help of algorithms, proprietary sources, and exhaustive testing.

Making IP data more usable

To make IP data more usable, Ben and the IPinfo team are constantly developing more and more product integrations and SDKs, while also making our data available via more marketplaces.

Additionally, IPinfo delivers IP data in a variety of formats. When IPinfo started, Ben developed a simple API, but now these datasets are available as a downloadable database. What’s more, a variety of companies use our APIs and integrations to internally embed our data in their products.

Ben developed a product that makes so much sense - a simple API for hobbyists and developers. In other words, the initial version was created to solve a problem, not convert customers.

And while we do offer paid plans and enterprise options for companies who need additional features, we’ve stayed true to our roots with free trials and free basic plans.

It was simple. It still is simple. And that’s how we plan to keep our data.

Want to try IPinfo’s geolocation data? Sign up for free today!