Hello Query pivots to embedded reporting for SaaS data analysts

Executive overview

SaaS founders building internal reporting tools often discover their customers don't want a standalone product — they want data embedded in their own apps. Colleen Schneetler, co-founder of Hello Query, reached this conclusion after 20+ customer interviews that revealed the real pain: SaaS companies are constantly asked for custom reports by their own customers.

The pivot: Hello Query is now an embeddable reporting component that SaaS companies drop into their products, letting their customers — particularly data analysts — extract and manipulate data directly.

The core insight: your customers' customers needing their data out is a stronger buying signal than internal reporting ever was.

Customer interview lessons

• Enthusiasm bias is a real trap — early interviews skewed positive because Colleen projected excitement onto interviewees
• Calibrated questions reveal actual pain: "how are you solving this now?" filters out non-problems fast
• If someone hasn't tried to solve it, it's not a big problem
• Signal quality markers: business size, problem frequency, what they're already paying to solve it
• Cold LinkedIn outreach yielded responses; warm Twitter connections converted better
• 20+ interviews produced a cohort of 3–4 founding customers to validate V1

The embedded reporting opportunity

• Internal reporting (once-a-week C-suite requests) wasn't painful enough to drive purchases
• Up-market companies already use Power BI — not a target segment
• Target: data-heavy SaaS companies whose customers want raw data access, not charts
• Data analysts want their hands on data; they'll take it to Excel or Power BI themselves
• Embedded reporting is a non-core but mandatory feature — SaaS teams hate building it, customers demand it
• Upsell potential: founders can charge a premium for a feature they'd otherwise have to build themselves

Competitive landscape and positioning

• Competitors exist and appeared during customer calls — validating real demand
• Differentiation: Hello Query keeps data control with the SaaS owner, not a third party
• Fixed visual design ("this is what it looks like, full stop") sidesteps per-customer style negotiation
• Tight niche focus is a deliberate constraint for a two-person team

Product and technical progress

• Core codebase carried over from the prior product (Hammerstone/Refined) — a true pivot, not a restart
• Working, secure, embeddable link already built and in use internally
• V1 target: production-ready quality, minimal features — erosion of trust is the main risk of shipping too early
• Colleen is immersed in Tableau and Power BI forums to understand the data analyst audience