The Exchanges

Q is, is a great parallel to what Gina just said. I mean, Zapier has so many, you could say clones or competitors, right? Like I've used many of them. Many of them are cheaper. How do you think about that differentiation and building a product and To Gina's point, like getting the right data and involving it in a way that you can stay ahead. You can have a moat.

A Yeah, I think first mover advantage is useful if you can build a healthy retention curve and that retention curve helps you make that product much better over time. And so you're just like making it much harder to compete with you. And that can be an all manner of things. Like Zapier's moat for some time was just, they had much more expansive coverage of apps and the amount of things that you can automate with. And then like more recently, it's like, how do, how do we integrate AI? How do we make automation much, much easier for companies? How can they actually do. Natural language within their apps. Like one of the things that's super interesting about the, the, the AI parts coming back, like the distribution and then the product part and the product-led growth. And like AI is a phenomenal unlock for product-led growth because product-led growth will get naturally built into every single product because every single product will have a natural language interface. And so like you will actually be able to onboard the products and use products without actually any human intervention intervention. And so, and I think that's an incredible, like. Augmentation of like how, how apps work, uh, in general, but I think the, the, the mode part is. Going to be much more complex. Like I'm talking through the lens of B to B, not through consumer apps, but certainly for B to B, it's going to …

AI assessment note: “Zapier's moat for some time was just, they had much more expansive coverage”

Q directed at any investors or potential investors in any A-Six and Z fund. Please note that A-Six and Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a.com slash disclosures. What are you seeing in terms of growth that still works in 20, 23? Are there white spaces that companies can, can tackle?

A What's happening is kind of really interesting because there may be like AI is somewhat of a tailwind for like maybe 12 months or 18 months for the best people. And then who knows after that, maybe a headwind across everything. So I think certainly in search, I've really dug in there and there are lots of examples of the click through rate decrease in and the amount of traffic you get from Google search pages. Pages decrease in, but I still think there's like a lot of value in that. Paid ads, very similar. I still think there's a lot of value in that. What really happened with, with the popularity and growth of the internet is like marketing growth became much more measurable and they could have a seat at the revenue table and they could say, yeah, I put a dollar on here and I get three dollars out here. And the growth that's starting to happen today or where things are starting to shift is a little bit back to like this indirect causation. These channels, like if you look at the platforms that that's growing, it's like short, short from video, TikTok, YouTube, like these kinds of media channels. If you look at where I think things will go with the evolution of AI, people will want to talk to people, so like community becomes much more important, referral becomes much more important, where the mouth becomes much more important. All of these things are Uh, gonna shift us back in…

AI assessment note: “where things are starting to shift is a little bit back to like this indirect causation”

Q directed at any investors or potential investors in any A-Six and Z fund. Please note that A-Six and Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a.com slash disclosures. What are you seeing in terms of growth that still works in 20, 23? Are there white spaces that companies can, can tackle?

A What's happening is kind of really interesting because there may be like AI is somewhat of a tailwind for like maybe 12 months or 18 months for the best people. And then who knows after that, maybe a headwind across everything. So I think certainly in search, I've really dug in there and there are lots of examples of the click through rate decrease in and the amount of traffic you get from Google search pages. Pages decrease in, but I still think there's like a lot of value in that. Paid ads, very similar. I still think there's a lot of value in that. What really happened with, with the popularity and growth of the internet is like marketing growth became much more measurable and they could have a seat at the revenue table and they could say, yeah, I put a dollar on here and I get three dollars out here. And the growth that's starting to happen today or where things are starting to shift is a little bit back to like this indirect causation. These channels, like if you look at the platforms that that's growing, it's like short, short from video, TikTok, YouTube, like these kinds of media channels. If you look at where I think things will go with the evolution of AI, people will want to talk to people, so like community becomes much more important, referral becomes much more important, where the mouth becomes much more important. All of these things are Uh, gonna shift us back in…

AI assessment note: “community becomes much more important, referral becomes much more important, where the mouth becomes”

Q is, is a great parallel to what Gina just said. I mean, Zapier has so many, you could say clones or competitors, right? Like I've used many of them. Many of them are cheaper. How do you think about that differentiation and building a product and To Gina's point, like getting the right data and involving it in a way that you can stay ahead. You can have a moat.

A Yeah, I think first mover advantage is useful if you can build a healthy retention curve and that retention curve helps you make that product much better over time. And so you're just like making it much harder to compete with you. And that can be an all manner of things. Like Zapier's moat for some time was just, they had much more expansive coverage of apps and the amount of things that you can automate with. And then like more recently, it's like, how do, how do we integrate AI? How do we make automation much, much easier for companies? How can they actually do. Natural language within their apps. Like one of the things that's super interesting about the, the, the AI parts coming back, like the distribution and then the product part and the product-led growth. And like AI is a phenomenal unlock for product-led growth because product-led growth will get naturally built into every single product because every single product will have a natural language interface. And so like you will actually be able to onboard the products and use products without actually any human intervention intervention. And so, and I think that's an incredible, like. Augmentation of like how, how apps work, uh, in general, but I think the, the, the mode part is. Going to be much more complex. Like I'm talking through the lens of B to B, not through consumer apps, but certainly for B to B, it's going to …

AI assessment note: “Zapier's moat for some time was just, they had much more expansive coverage of apps”