How can we fix the Market for Solutions?

For example, say you’re building a product for a niche market worth “only” $50 million. Who will invest in you? VCs won’t touch you because the math doesn’t work out — they need investments that have a shot at returning the portfolio. Banks won’t touch you because they only know how to underwrite going concerns — businesses with operating history, ... See more

It is still really hard for Builders and Customers to find each other. If you don’t believe me, just look at the cost of advertising. In an efficient world, Customers and Builders would be instantly matched at low cost. Instead, companies deploy hundreds of billions of dollars on marketing each year.

What if investors could directly fund product R&D within existing companies, taking risk in exchange for a future share of revenue?

-What if there were incentives — or requirements — for large institutions to create sandboxes where authorized Builders can access real problems and testbed ideas?

What if we had a “US Department of Experiments” with the power to grant temporary waivers from Federal, State, and City laws — when safe and ethical to do so — for the purposes of learning what policy interventions actually work?

There’s tons of room for creativity in how we improve distribution:

Cheap access to capital should drive innovation and problem-solving... why is it that “money in the 21st century simply doesn’t know what to do with itself”?

Programs like Pathstream help upskill people into tech jobs. OnDeck is building an onramp for entrepreneurs to find cofounders, fund themselves, and even obtain healthcare while they build. ISAs are nudging the putrescent education establishment towards positive ROIs for students.

How many highly-educated, ambitious college grads and FAANG alumni start companies chasing low-value problems, because finding the high-value ones is too hard?

What if new Builders easily get funding against a signed LOI or customer contract (a kind of “startup factoring”)?