Het belang van het bouwen van een platformbedrijf in de moderne economie

Het werken met bedrijven in een vroeg stadium is een opwindende mogelijkheid, of het nu gaat om het beoordelen van potentiële investeringen als een angel-investeerder of het adviseren van degenen in de gemeenschap of beleggingsportefeuille. Onlangs leek de snelheid van ontwikkeling en de groei van Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) -bedrijven te resulteren in een explosie van 'product'-bedrijven boven' platform'-bedrijven. Naar mijn mening is de groei van 'product'-bedrijven een gevolg van het verbazingwekkende succes van verschillende' platform'-bedrijven die hun architectuur hebben opengesteld om externe innovatie toe te staan ​​vanwege hun schaalgrootte.

Er zijn meerdere manieren om "product" bedrijven en "platform" bedrijven te beschrijven, dus laat me verduidelijken hoe ik de twee zie. Ten eerste is een "product" -bedrijf een bedrijf dat een bepaald type oplossing verkoopt voor een probleem in een specifieke sector of bedrijfstype. Daarentegen proberen 'platform'-bedrijven sectoren of sectoren te transformeren met een reeks oplossingen en producten. Producten hebben geen verdedigbaarheid en vertrouwen vaak op andere platforms voor klantenverwerving, gegevens of infrastructuur. Omgekeerd laten platforms nieuwe producten tegen aanzienlijk lagere incrementele kosten bouwen en betalen gebruikers voor de nieuwe aangeboden waarde in vergelijking met het betalen voor meer van een dienst.

Verder lijkt er in een aantal beginnende beleggers, adviseurs en besturen een duw te zijn om zich te richten op het bouwen van productbedrijven, omdat het pijplijn- en klantacquisitiemodel voorspelbaarder is. Hoewel dit tot enige risicobeperking kan leiden, leidt de focus ertoe het opwaartse potentieel van een investering te beperken. Het moedigt ook kapitaaltoewijzing aan voor productontwikkeling en niet voor platformgroei. Het resultaat is een gebrek aan focus op architectuur en een verlangen om zich uitsluitend te richten op de verkoop van specifieke producten. Er is een uitstekende discussie over "Pipe Thinking" en "Platform Thinking" bij Platform Thinking Labs .

Hoewel 'product'-bedrijven ongelofelijk succesvol kunnen zijn, vind ik dat de meeste oprichters al vroeg product-markt-fit hebben en deze oplossing willen schalen. Door de groei van software en de lage kosten voor het bouwen van nieuwe producten, is het echter steeds meer nodig om de marktpositie van oprichters te identificeren om nieuwe en duurzame bedrijven te creëren. Stichters zouden een passie moeten hebben voor het transformeren van een industrie, en hoewel velen eerder in die sectoren werkten, zijn anderen van mening dat het leveren van innovatie in technologie of bedrijfsmodel transformatief zal zijn.

To better illustrate why companies should focus on building a platform strategy, I created several charts to explain the concept and underlying premise. First, and fundamental to my core assertion is that pricing directly correlates to the value received by the user. If you are familiar with value-based pricing, this is the core underlying belief. The graph below quite merely states that the more complex a problem that receives a solution, the more a customer is willing to pay.

In practical terms, this means that customers are willing to pay much less for storage per user than the price they would pay for having a full content and workflow management solution. If you are building a commodity service, then the market has to be substantially large enough that you can charge a minimal amount across millions of users. However, if you are building an industry-changing platform company, then you need to be able to provide solutions that address more complex problems by your customers.

When building a platform company, you need a strong foundation of technology, processes, and people so you can increase the Average Revenue Per Customer. The below chart shows the relationship between the production costs associated with building a platform to solve challenges for customers. If it is a solution that addresses minimally complex problems, the cost is lower and the maximum value received is lower. For more complex challenges, the cost to build a new platform is more significant, and customers will pay more for the value they are receiving. While on the production side, each new feature added costs significantly less to build. If built with customer-focused releases, there should be minimally viable products that customers want though they do not wholly solve a problem. This value is often when a product brings technology to a business but does not address the core process or technology associated with solving the problem in an industry.

From an investor perspective, the Platform Funding Gap causes the core rift between founders and investors. The cost to build a platform is expensive, but there is the tremendous opportunity for Value Creation and Acceleration on top of the platform where the cost to build each new feature is less than the initial features.

Founders have solutions to minimize the Platform Funding Gap, but we as investors often discourage some of those methods. I want to make the following case why investors should look at alternative revenue sources in companies building a platform and reinforce the benefit of having founder-market fit.

First, the typical advice given to companies is they should be laser-focused on building their product and getting user growth and traction. Most metrics point to this, and often the founders also want to be focused on building products. If the founder has sufficient capital or a minimally viable set of products that when delivered at scale can fill the funding gap, then stay focused. However, if you are a startup not in Silicon Valley or want to remain focused on transforming an industry over fundraising, then perhaps the following will be more helpful.

Second, having strong Founder-Market-Fit provides a company with the knowledge and understanding to work with a small set of customers to solve their complex problems. The pricing and approach for this are not product-driven, it is much more customized and built with alongside the customer and gets grouped as professional services.

WHAT?!!! Did I just say professional services? consulting?!!! We don’t invest in lifestyle companies!!! We only invest in companies built to scale into massive markets with a product that everyone wants!!!

Let me be clear, I am not advocating building a professional services company, but I do believe professional services are a reliable revenue source that increases a company’s understanding of the market. Further, professional services companies can be viable companies and we should not be afraid of building sustainable businesses as entrepreneurs and founders while also looking over the horizon to the future. While Paul Graham talks about doing things that do not scale, I disagree that companies should not use it as a source of revenue. Companies should never be afraid to require customers to pay for services where they receive value. An ancillary benefit for the founders who came from the industry the company focuses is their passion often comes from working on significant problems and challenges for the industry. They are thought leaders and seek to be transformative, and the relationships they build will drive the marquee customers that provide referential value for the company.

The graph above highlights where there is the opportunity to build non-platform services that will most likely be people getting paid for providing one-time services, i.e., professional services. Early in the lifecycle of a company, the services may each be customized, but as the company progresses, the company may choose to use services to fill in the gaps where the platform has yet to be entirely built, e.g., installation and integration services.

At some point, the company will get to what I call the Platform Crossover Point. This point is where the professional services should be phased out of the company and the focus should move from the exploration of the business model and focus exclusively on adding users to the platform. During this phase, the most value is created, and new features and products developed at such speed that new customer segments begin to emerge on the platform. Often this results in new features being added to the platform that many users do not use, but sufficiently large customer segments.

The next major inflection point is the Complexity Crossover Point. This point is where adding new features or solving new problems gets to the point of irreducible complexity or perhaps more clinically where the cost of development on the platform exceeds the value a customer is willing to pay. These complex areas become interesting when thinking about new products, platforms, and services to be offered by companies and the ecosystem of partners a platform develops. They are also areas where new technologies may change or be enhanced by the platform a company created.

My goal with this article is to give founders and investors a new lens to think about how to build companies that can be more sustainable and also built with greater capital efficiency. Companies that focus on delivering increasing value to customers will have the culture to sustain and innovate for the long term. They will be companies that will never let a platform languish, and the employees will have a cult-like focus on using the platform to transform an industry because no one builds a cult-like following just trying to sell a product.