Spurred on by the podcast between @collision & @patrick_oshag I continue to think one of the most fun things about studying public companies is the broader learnings you can use to apply to company building at the earlier stages, 👇🏾
Salesforce is the best model to study in terms of how to leverage a direct sales team, build a ecosystem of developers on app marketplace, SIs/consultants getting paid to distribute your product and how to use cash flows of a mature product to expand TAM through M&A
The main thing that impresses me about Salesforce is it’s a massive distribution model, and same goes for Atlassian which kinda flipped some aspects of the model on its head (build community, developer love, product led growth) but also still leverage mature cash flows to expand
When you start looking at great companies to learn secret sauce, you start to realize unique ways of distribution that unlocked growth, Fastenal not only has stores near major industrial areas but has installed many vending machines on construction sites for commoditized goods
Constellation software has created the best process for acquiring vertical market software, this process of decentralized decision making with clear goals and hurdles enables them to make hundreds of acquisitions at huge scale
By studying all these companies you can choose the best models that work for you, perhaps you like Atlassian’s product led growth but like Salesforce’s ecosystem, or Shopify with the “sandwich model” h/t @edsim where they have both self serve and high touch sales w/ Shopify plus
Centralized vs decentralized decision making can be studied in depth from the conglomerates, Berkshire and Constellation decentralized, Salesforce and Oracle super centralized; different models work for different businesses and management team’s strengths
The key concepts I get from studying best of breed in various industries are distribution, org structure, levers that friction plays in purchase decisions, how to place big bets, contraction/expansion of businesses, and broadly the multiple facets to competitive differentiation
By the way Berkshire should be centralized, sorry typing too quickly lol
