“Would it be possible to run a real business in a way that feels like playing a video game?”
There are lots of interesting ideas here.
It’s not such a stretch to turn many aspects of running a business into a game. Startups already focus on metrics like CAC, LTV, MRR, and KPIs as if they were levels or points in a video game. We will most certainly see more gamification elements in apps and business dashboards.
The flip side to this argument is that as businesses use more of the same tools to sell the same products and measure themselves with the same metrics, it will be harder than ever to differentiate. Real human interactions are not a game to be abstracted away.
“Venture capitalist Nikhil Basu Trivedi recently wrote about Business-in-a-Box Platforms (BiaB), including but not limited to Shopify, that ‘enable new businesses to be started, managed, and grown using their products.’ These BiaB companies all take a set of products someone would need to start a business in a particular vertical, bundle them together, and sell them to aspiring entrepreneurs. They abstract away the complexity of building a business, and narrow the set of choices an entrepreneur needs to make.”
“Over time, more and more businesses will be able to be run as if they’re games, from real estate to SaaS and even to large-scale manufacturing. As robots replace labor (each robot replaces 3.3 human jobs according to MIT), more business is run via software, and complexity is continually abstracted away, there are very few businesses that won’t be able to be run as if they’re games.”
Business Opportunity: There will be more demand for dashboards and applications that allow companies to be run like a game.
As the metrics and steps to grow a business or audience become more systematized, there will be more drop-servicing opportunities to connect outsourced workers with all growth stages of a business. (i.e. Your dashboard will suggest specific landing page A/B tests because it is not converting well compared to competitors, and even have a list of available experts to help.)
I reported before on Nathan Latka’s FounderPath. It offers a dashboard that startups connect to for debt financing at reasonable rates.
There are lots of interesting ideas here.
It’s not such a stretch to turn many aspects of running a business into a game. Startups already focus on metrics like CAC, LTV, MRR, and KPIs as if they were levels or points in a video game. We will most certainly see more gamification elements in apps and business dashboards.
The flip side to this argument is that as businesses use more of the same tools to sell the same products and measure themselves with the same metrics, it will be harder than ever to differentiate. Real human interactions are not a game to be abstracted away.
“Venture capitalist Nikhil Basu Trivedi recently wrote about Business-in-a-Box Platforms (BiaB), including but not limited to Shopify, that ‘enable new businesses to be started, managed, and grown using their products.’ These BiaB companies all take a set of products someone would need to start a business in a particular vertical, bundle them together, and sell them to aspiring entrepreneurs. They abstract away the complexity of building a business, and narrow the set of choices an entrepreneur needs to make.”
“Over time, more and more businesses will be able to be run as if they’re games, from real estate to SaaS and even to large-scale manufacturing. As robots replace labor (each robot replaces 3.3 human jobs according to MIT), more business is run via software, and complexity is continually abstracted away, there are very few businesses that won’t be able to be run as if they’re games.”
Business Opportunity: There will be more demand for dashboards and applications that allow companies to be run like a game.
As the metrics and steps to grow a business or audience become more systematized, there will be more drop-servicing opportunities to connect outsourced workers with all growth stages of a business. (i.e. Your dashboard will suggest specific landing page A/B tests because it is not converting well compared to competitors, and even have a list of available experts to help.)
I reported before on Nathan Latka’s FounderPath. It offers a dashboard that startups connect to for debt financing at reasonable rates.