I'm getting more and more excited about applying @shopify's "arming the rebels" strategy to the @earnestcapital thesis. I think we're going to see more and more VC-backed B2B marketplaces get unbundled by SaaS that let's suppliers sell directly with all the same ease.
Venture-funded marketplaces have done good hard work infusing technology into a ton of business verticals but ultimately these models become predatory: taking more control & more of a cut of revenues. Now-tech-savvy suppliers see value in SaaS to sell direct
@tobi described @Shopify as "arming the rebels" against the Empire of Amazon, allowing them to fight on fair ground against a dominant marketplace... obviously AMZN is fine, but Tobi's strategy is absolutely working! DTC and less reliance on AMZN is the trend.
I think there's going to be a ton more "arming the rebels" opportunities (and definitely want to back them). Pick virtually any venture-funded marketplace with a dominant position in the last 5-10 years and building SaaS for suppliers is likely a good bet earnestcapital.com/start/for-foun…
PS - the inverted strategy here of the SaaS-first-marketplace is also a great one. Build a SaaS for suppliers that's valuable for managing their own customers, aggregate supply, launch a marketplace, augment their customers with marketplace leads.
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