sam in beta

Developer tools are unequivocally my favorite products to invest in. They attract dedicated users who can use them to create huge value, and the platforms win by sharing in that success. But as someone whose strongest coding language is Excel, I’m not capable of using nearly any of them… and I imagine that’s true for the majority of people. Developer tools assume a higher level of technical competency, time to learn the syntax, and an ability to integrate with our work. They give superpowers, but only to the already superpowered. 

Meanwhile, companies are struggling to hire and keep engineers, costs of these teams are skyrocketing, and everyone now rents their infrastructure rather than build it.

So what happens when there are incredible new platforms, but companies have less capacity to become experts in all of them? Maybe there’s a new layer of tools that will bridge the gap. More non-technical founders are experimenting with building products. Products require integrating more and more of these tools. There are opportunities to connect and abstract some of these tools into more approachable bundles, with a user interface built for different audiences. Imagine having an easy way to pull transactions using Plaid, trigger a stock purchase with the extra change using Alpaca, and then send a text to confirm the addition to your portfolio with Twilio. If every bank wanted to use this workflow, why shouldn’t there be a single script they all use? What if starting a software company became as easy as starting a Shopify store. Each of these gaps presents an opportunity for someone to imagine what platform could be built out of it.

It’s not quite clear to me where these opportunities will lead. More small software companies that build specific functions? Open source or OSS-like projects for sharing the best versions? Maybe some new platforms that find enough room to build their own audience? The current platforms will be intently focused on making sure they don’t lose connectivity to their customers, but even they appreciate the growth that comes from professional services or other platforms. If they leave enough room, someone could build something massive in the gap.

Your full-time job isn’t a full-time job. At least it doesn’t have to be.

Companies have always outsourced parts of their operation, deciding which things were “core competencies” that they were uniquely capable of. If you’re Peloton, you shouldn’t build your own accounting software. If you’re Intuit, you shouldn’t manage your own custom email server. But what happens when individuals start to recognize the power of outsourcing?

Some wealthy people have always done this. They invest in chefs, gardeners, in-home help, and personal drivers. This may seem to be a necessity of their larger lifestyles, but it’s as much a choice of how they should spend their time. Many people can now hire out these parts of their lives with ride-sharing, home services marketplaces, and food delivery.

It’s not much of a reach to start doing this for your work. Companies I work with offer employees $5,000 budgets for Fiverr or Upwork to outsource tasks they don’t want to do themselves. Many midlevel employees I know have hired personal assistants, usually virtual, to manage a blend of work and personal administrative tasks. Others have taken some task they do every week and hired someone to do it for them, like preparing a report that requires the same flow of data gathering and formatting. Your favorite newsletter almost certain has part-time research assistants. All of these things can help someone get back time.

This idea isn’t new all, just that more people are using it. First, it’s just people recognizing the power of specialization in basic economics. But the pandemic was the first time that many knowledge workers could execute on this, without anyone noticing their attendance or activity in the office. What happened? People working multiple full time jobs. Seemingly endless side hustles on social media, or in financial markets. A boom in interest for investing, NFTs, and a variety of other speculative activity.

While people wonder why we’ve never gotten away from the 40 hour work week, perhaps for a large section of the economy we’re finally there. With that recaptured time and a wave of creativity, I can’t wait to see what else people dream up.

Note: I understand that I’m talking about a small part of the population and job opportunities, today. But making more people aware of it could help them discover how to take advantage, and improve their lives.