Tech ecosystems move through three stages: siloed vendors, platforms like Zapier with plugins, and open ecosystems built on shared protocols. Where your domain lands determines how to price and position what you build.
There are 3 phases to a tech ecosystem. The first one is siloed service providers. This is when there's one provider who's doing all the work and you are, you know, you're hiring that one provider, all their, all their workers or widgets or whatever, all first party. And you're just dealing with that. We saw a lot of that in like the first generation of like low-code, no-code tools. Second is going to be when you have a platform, right? This is kind of where like Zapier is, right? It provides a core element. You have other plugins that are working for Zapier. It is a protected environment using Zapier to sort of compose those things together. That'd be the example of a platform that's providing all that. And the third one is an ecosystem, an open ecosystem. The open ecosystem idea is that rather than having a service provider, what you really have is a protocol, a way that these things can sort of be talking to each other. There are examples where like the natural ending state, like in social media, is to be more of a platform or single service. There are examples where it's more of the ecosystem. Understand where your environment is and you'll be able to make more money.
