"Beware of startups pitching platforms." it's a super interesting point. Parker and Rippling have shown the power of compound startups, albeit the massive expense of building them early. And almost everyone at scale ends up there someday (Datadog and HubSpot great examples in general).
But does it work for others in the sub-$50m ARR phase? I think 95 times out of 100 it's not a practical strategy.
Remember, I am aiming this at the enterprise buyer. Typically they have an incumbent suite, and are buying to fill gaps. If your game is to try and replace workday or SAP then all bets are off, you are in for a monster sales cycle....
When you are pitching a 100k-300k ACV product at enterprise, it should really be solving one problem, not multiple. If you are solving multiple problems, you move up the buying hierarchy, lengthening the sales cycle, so you need a much bigger ticket, and you end up being in the "exploit" end of customer's IT spend, so big RFPs, Accenture etc.
Solve one problem well, use that a wedge.
I'm still trying to figure out Rippling, but if you raise that sort of money, you end up playing a different game.
"Beware of startups pitching platforms." it's a super interesting point. Parker and Rippling have shown the power of compound startups, albeit the massive expense of building them early. And almost everyone at scale ends up there someday (Datadog and HubSpot great examples in general).
But does it work for others in the sub-$50m ARR phase? I think 95 times out of 100 it's not a practical strategy.
Remember, I am aiming this at the enterprise buyer. Typically they have an incumbent suite, and are buying to fill gaps. If your game is to try and replace workday or SAP then all bets are off, you are in for a monster sales cycle....
When you are pitching a 100k-300k ACV product at enterprise, it should really be solving one problem, not multiple. If you are solving multiple problems, you move up the buying hierarchy, lengthening the sales cycle, so you need a much bigger ticket, and you end up being in the "exploit" end of customer's IT spend, so big RFPs, Accenture etc.
Solve one problem well, use that a wedge.
I'm still trying to figure out Rippling, but if you raise that sort of money, you end up playing a different game.