Grant Gregory is a partner on the American Dynamism team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). He discusses GTM challenges for startups selling autonomous and digital tools to conservative, legacy shipping operators.
“And this is a category that, you know, the people in the industry are quite smart, but they're, it's very difficult to convince them to change because most of the stuff that you're trying to sell to them is dealing with mission critical applications. They can't have downtime and they're already dealing with huge backlogs and stresses. And so they oftentimes need to have proof of work. They need to be able to see that there's some sort of like verifiable evidence that what you're doing will save them money and time. And so as a result, there's just a huge onus on being able to deliver something rapidly in a cost efficient manner.”
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More from Grant Gregory
AssertionPartly supported
Maps of Mars and Venus are 50x more detailed than ocean maps
“Most of what we actually know about the ocean seafloor today has been gathered from gravity data from satellites. And so it's a useful starting point, but the resulting resolution that we have is only about two square miles, I think. And when you compare that …”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 4:13Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Geopolitical and climate disruptions will accelerate maritime tech demand
“We're seeing companies like Flexport, Saronic, and SailDrone, and many others have already started modernizing maritime, and we anticipate that continued geopolitical supply chain and climate disruptions will further accelerate the demand for change here.”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 2:22Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
AssertionPartly supported
Shipping containers reduced global goods transportation costs by 99%
“Something like the shipping container that reduced Global costs of transportation for goods by something like 99%.”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 5:39Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
AssertionNot checkable as stated
The maritime industry still operates largely on pen, paper, and email
“A lot of the current state of the art is very analog. And we're talking about an industry that still operates largely with pen, paper, and maybe emails and phone calls.”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 5:59Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Flexport proved maritime supply chain digitization is a viable market
“Flexport's a great example, and there's plenty of others that have kind of proven out this is a real market, and there's real opportunity here to digitize it, and it's difficult, but it's possible.”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 8:19Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
Opinion
Arc Boats brings Tesla and SpaceX manufacturing principles to maritime
“Arc boats has done a great job of encapsulating what the future of maritime looks like in that, you know, from a process and team perspective, Mitch and Ryan delivered the Tesla and SpaceX vision and mission to maritime. They're not just creating Consumer boat…”
Grant GregoryDec 24, 2023▶ 10:27Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
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