Monopoly on the market

Hi all –

Last week I shared my thoughts on network effects and how we need to have a durable advantage over our competitors. But what’s my answer to how we fulfill our mission of changing the way businesses buy from other businesses?

Build a monopoly.

A monopoly is defined as a product offering by a company that dominates a specific sector of an industry, which is exactly how I envision what we’re building at Drift.

In order to understand where we start, there’s a simple framework of asking ourselves, “what decision would help us build a monopoly in the long-term?”

When I ask myself that question, the answer is simple: we want to build a moat around the conversation data between businesses and customers.

Using our conversational, first-party data, we can provide insights to businesses, optimize their customer experience, and build something that’s hard to replicate.

The biggest weakness will be getting caught up in the daily firefight of reactive work that hits our desks and forgetting the long-term vision; so you have to be intentional. With intentionality, it’s just as important to have high standards – not only from ourselves but from our teams and from our product – so we can build a moat that’s hard to replicate.