Vertical integration is typically the dominant strategy when industries are in their early stages or undergoing significant transformation, when market structures are unclear, supply chains are underdeveloped, and new technologies are emerging. Companies that can control more of the value chain can introduce new products that the market needs faste... See more

I’m personally much more interested in machine intelligence as human augmentation rather than the oft-hyped AI assistant as a separate embodiment.

There are many other products where a brokerage model is required to facilitate a transaction such as online insurance and mortgage agencies. Usually we find these in complex financial products that have some type of regulatory or compliance component. These transactions simply do not work without a person helping a customer along, there is just to... See more

The brokerage model is what we employed at Fundera. There are several distinctions between brokerages and marketplaces, but a key one is automation versus people-intensive. Marketplaces are fully automated. You can complete a purchase as a buyer without ever speaking with a person. Everything is magically taken care of for you by software. But in i... See more

The best lead generation companies usually have some combination of a distinguished and highly trusted brand and a proprietary channel or value proposition they use to acquire customers that competitors cannot replicate. These companies typically have staying power and defensibility, are highly differentiated, and immensely more valuable than compe... See more

The downside of lead generation businesses is that they can be a race to the bottom if they're in a crowded and competitive market. The barriers to entry are essentially aggregating supply (i.e. buyers of leads or businesses willing to pay for new customers) so there is little in the way of defensibility. The other downside is that they are very tr... See more

The downside of lead generation businesses is that they can be a race to the bottom if they're in a crowded and competitive market. The barriers to entry are essentially aggregating supply (i.e. buyers of leads or businesses willing to pay for new customers) so there is little in the way of defensibility. The other downside is that they are very tr... See more

More broadly, what will remain are jobs to be done. Software needs to be stable and predictable and have infrastructure to run on; that is a lot easier to buy from an entity than to manage yourself. Businesses don’t want to be IT departments; they want to actually achieve business results, and any time spent trying to get stuff to work is a waste o... See more