Rocket ships and tractors

There are essentially two business models right now: boring, useful things that can print money and tastemaker brands that can brute force cultural relevancy. Dumb $ is funding the middle: stuff that is neither useful nor cool enough to make it past current startup headwinds.

It's hard to get around that, but the way you can do it is if you build in utility. And I think that is largely because advertising was a hell of a drug for these companies for so long. That is why all these big internet advertising platforms were slow to become marketplaces, because it would have a temporary negative financial impact. Th... See more

This model may work when major network or scale effects are at play. These are powerful forces that blunt competition and protect margins. Think Google, Facebook and Uber.

(1) Viable business model - can you make decent profits on the unit economics? (note: this means that DTC winners will, by and large, be premium-priced, with decent basket sizes, with efficient cost structures, and have repeat business with a customer rather than just one-off transactions)