Modern Suppliers

Modern suppliers typically have one or more of these characteristics:

If you zoom far enough out, is it possible that software companies in the future are either suppliers or marketing businesses?

The inevitable endpoint of this is total abstraction and meta-suppliers that serve as connectors between these larger suppliers.

These modern suppliers are fundamentally democratizing the opportunity for anyone to build and scale. It’s, arguably, never been easier to start a software company. However, distribution and attention is the bottleneck for most companies.

Aligned incentives with their customers. They usually have a “pay per use” pricing model with the ability to scale operations ‘infinitely.’

Every company should be asking:

Provide tooling that is difficult and resource-intensive to be built and managed in-house. This tooling is often a fixed cost and outside of a company’s core thesis.

Suppliers focus specifically on certain elements of a business, while marketing companies are focused solely on captivating and nurturing an audience and community.

Which aspects of our business need to be built in-house?