Corporate venture capital can allow larger companies to participate in agile startup ecosystems
Corporate VC sometimes used to distance large firms from risk, as in financial tech area
May be hard to integrate startups into larger enterprise
Rationale for investment varies: investment portfolio diversity, intellectual property acquisition, talent acquisition, mergers with other companies or capabilities
Collection of three coordinated, core technology layers to make connected devices
Thread: IoT network protocol Google helped get started (and whose organizing group has many companies, not just Google)—creating a standard for mesh-based IoT connections
Weave: API layer for IoT with a micro-OS (here’s a bit more about the implications, from Verge)
Brillo: IoT-optimized variant of Android for embedding in devices (again, a bit more from Verge)
Idea of having comfort and consistency in a place you do not own or inhabit all the time
May include increased privacy and luxury
Digital layer makes customization/personalization and scheduling easier, such as Uber + Spotify integration so a rider’s music plays through the Uber driver’s speakers automatically
Examples:
Car as second home
Starbucks as global living room/meeting space
Plane and Hotel as third places
Car rental and hotel apps which allow frequent users to set preferences in advance
Products whose core value involves social functions
Smart, connected software layer for physical products
Usually requires access to existing social networks; may also require a ‘social network of things’ for hardware integration
Done well, creates pull for users to interact with the brand, minimizes ‘pushes’ of brand content
“If you want to build loyalty, spend less time using data to tell customers about you, and spend more time telling them something about themselves.”—Mark Bonchek
Products and services with a data layer which makes the experience feel intuitive to the customer—a minimum of effort and thinking is required to get value
Usually requires integration of many systems and datasets
Shared ownership, usually of expensive or highly specific goods
Can be shared ownership between individuals or through ‘rent’-like services
Increases individual purchasing power by fractionalizing ownership, e.g. timeshares
Digital layer lessens convenience and cost impacts on individuals owners by coordinating access and service; may include insurance or expanded warranties
Barter or swap (either of goods or services) may be critical component to increasing usership
SDKs enable developers to quickly develop fast, stable, secure and consistent software for end users
Large companies provide SDKs to smaller companies developing on their platform for more consistent user experience
Takes form of toolkit of software elements (sometimes as a library or framework) and documentation; may have multiple contributors (in open source approaches)
Establishment of platforms to enable creation of value by people other than those who developed the platform
Combination of shared central resources and develop-specific innovations
Core of modern business models behind iOS, Android ecosystems, many others
Allows innovation at both the core and edges of an enterprise
Allows solving of very complex problems at enterprise scale and often leaves market, distribution, integration or feature-specific innovations to smaller developers
