Why the next trillion-dollar company may be an AI services firm

Transcript

The next $1 trillion company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm. Volume 6 We're going to see a lot more of these AI-native service firms where you basically led AI takeover and do the work while you get to keep something like 70% gross margins but you still might have a terrible business because you still have to go out there and sell the service. And that's the part of this model and nobody seems to have figured out yet how to actually get new customers. Even the guy behind the thesis Julian Beck admitted this is still an open question. You can now automate most of the delivery charged by the outcome instead of the hours. You can even start approaching software like margins but you still have to go out there and sell the thing. And enterprise services don't distribute like software. You can't throw up a self-serve product, charge $49 a seat and then just wait for people to swipe their credit card. You're asking a company to trust you with an actual business outcome which completely changes the GTM. But one of the most powerful VCs in the world have outlined two ways to approach this. They called them lighthouse and land grab. If the buyer already understands the problem and can easily calculate what it's costing them then you can land grab. And I actually closed my first client in this AI native service era using the land grab approach. Client is a large design company. They just hired someone to roll out their AI strategy and I reached out with something very concrete. I think I can reduce what you're spending on photography by 80%. And within a month I had signed a contract with the head of marketing. Now speed matters. I have to sell more get customers and take market share. On the other hand, imagine you're selling something the buyer has never trusted an outside company. Let alone AI to do before. Now the math isn't enough. You need a lighthouse, one credible customer who takes the first risk. You make them successful and suddenly their logo becomes proof for everyone behind them. So if you're currently building an AI native service firm or you've been thinking about it I would try to figure this out before obsessing over the technology. Does your buyer need proof or do they need math? If they need math then move fast and land grab. And if they need proof go get the lighthouse. AI makes it easier and faster to build something but we still need a handshake to make a living by it.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.