Consumer Concepts And The Enterprise As The End Customer

Earlier this week, I helped lead a discussion re: on-demand services with an old friend (Kevin from Shyp) and a new friend (Sara from Postmates) — Basti double-booked himself! Our chat was part of Emergence Capital’s annual fall “Mobile Enterprise” event (see below for the Twitter timeline from the event), which is always great. I learn a ton at these events. My favorite sessions were the 1:1 interviews with David Barrett (Expensify) and @Stewart Butterfield (Slack). Both founders are unapologetic about how they work and provide real-talk in the face of generalized mantras and blogs people read/share re: how to startup, how to get investment, how to hire. These guys are the real deal and I wish I had my hands on the audio feed for these chats.

I seem to get called to help organize every “on-demand” panel, which is nice but also confusing. Is it really a big deal? I go back and forth. Almost two year ago now, when I was lucky to invest in companies like Instacart and DoorDash, I thought — yes, it’s a big deal. Then, I started to get wind of more companies, and they were contacting me, and I got overwhelmed, so I shied away. That turned out to be a mistake and I missed one awesome company because my brain shut off. Then, more recently in LA at the Rutberg Media event, on another panel, someone from the crowd asked a question about on-demand services for business, and Kevin got me thinking about something — what if on-demand is now just table stakes for delivering new customer experiences, even when the customer is a business?

That’s what we discussed on stage, and what I’ve been looking for in my investing. So far, I’ve invested in a small handful of ODS geared at businesses as the end customer, and it turns out they also like this type of service. Maybe there’s something here. And, maybe a bigger trend. The phrase “consumerization of the enterprise” is quite overused and old, but what if consumer concepts like the sharing economy, on-demand services, and personalized software invade the business segment and give new companies a leg up on incumbents and even growing startups? That’s what I’ve been thinking over the last few weeks and would love to meet founders who are thinking along similar lines.