Mixpanel: A faster, simpler Google Analytics?

A startup called Mixpanel is launching today with an analytics service that it says can help companies get a much better sense of how users are actually interacting with their websites.

The biggest name in this market is Google Analytics, but Mixpanel is competing with many other companies too, such as NuConomy. Co-founder Suhail Doshi says many companies, including the makers of social network applications like RockYou, Zynga, and Slide (where Doshi worked), don’t find any of the existing products satisfying, and so build out their own solutions.

“Our main competitive advantage is we really get the market; I worked at Slide and have built products in a data-driven way, worked with their analytics team, seen their system and system of other extremely well known startups,” he says. “We’re building something we know people will use, because we know exactly what the big boys use. We know their pain points and really get where they are severely inefficient.”

You can see a full list of features at the Mixpanel site, and further discussion at the Mixpanel blog, but Mixpanel seems to be highlighting two main advantages, speed and simplicity. On the speed front, the data is provided in real-time, so you don’t have to wait for the numbers to roll in from Google Analytics (which, judging from my experience watching VentureBeat data, is usually hours behind). In terms of simplicity, Mixpanel can be added to your site with just a few lines of code, and also delivers data in an easy-to-understand form, which in turn makes it easier to make necessary changes. For example, Doshi touts the company’s “funnel analytics” tool, which provides an easy-to-follow diagram of each step in the “funnel” leading visitors to either signing up with company or buying a product, and showing you where they dropped off.

Mixpanel is being incubated by Y Combinator, and some of its early customers include other Y Combinator startups like Heyzap and Posterous. I previously wrote about another startup of Doshi’s called OutQuib, which wanted to be the center of online debates.