Platform Vendors: You're Getting Rainmade, and How to Actually Evolve As a Brand
My favorite scene of the Wire - among many - is Maurice Levy trying to keep the ambitious Stringer Bell from getting suckered into buying influence from political "powers that be" and getting awarded projects as a result.
"A guy says if you pay them, he can make it rain. You pay them. If and when it rains, they take the credit. If and when it doesn't, he finds reasons for you to pay them more."
Sound familiar?
Let's start with the truth shall we?
* Commerce is a commodity. Meaning, the tech is ubiquitous, you have many choices, and they are everywhere at different maturity and price points, and easy to acquire.
* Commodity does not mean each platform is the same.
* Most brands are both not replatforming and constantly replatforming. It's called evolution.
* Analyst evaluations are not buyer's guides. (read this again)
* Reports are sponsored by analyst relations budgets written for their own team's sales reps. The money "washes" through the analyst firm much like Stringer Bell needs his money washed in The Wire.
At the risk of screwing up the analogy:
The platforms are the box for the tools to sit in, and the ISVs are the tools. You don't judge the box because it does not also serve as a good hammer. You judge both the hammer in the box, and the new hammer you could put in the box and how it fits in there.
The agency is then the architect and the job-site project manager. Assembling the tools, workers, and materials to build out your house. Your project manager already has their preferred toolset. Don't ask them what hammer they like, they have been using the same one for 10 years.
The consultant is like your mentor asking you if you can afford the house, and when to renovate or when to build new, what neighborhood to put it in, or if you should really be renting an apartment instead for this phase of your life.
Brands need to not ask what platform they should choose, but whether they have the mindset required to evolve
* Setting the goalposts: Are we solving an innovation problem, a cost structure problem, or what?
* Is our current customer ICP healthy, growing, and do we have product/market fit?
If the answer is no:
* What are the experiments and bets we are placing to determine if we will survive (for many, it is not about growth, it is currently about survival).
* Do we have an encouraging creative culture which rewards fresh ideas and data?
* Do we have a prioritization process which lets us see ideas through from experiments to implementation?
* Do we have a staff and partners needed to implement these ideas?
* What are our limitations we will run up against as we implement these ideas?
Which platform to choose runs far down this list of bullets in terms of limitations and blockers. It's the toolbox. If the toolbox is brought to the wrong jobsite and is working on the wrong project, no box is big enough and no tool is sharp enough.
