Shovels of the Gold Rush

In a Gold Rush, Sell Shovels!

Or at least that’s what conventional wisdom would say! But let’s try to pick this apart for a moment.

In emerging fields like AI and Blockchain there is an emphasis by B2B companies, consultants, and content creators to provide tooling, infrastructure, and expertise to other businesses with the expectation that they in-turn will create the real value.

This is akin to “selling shovels” during a gold rush. It’s a rational strategy that guarantees a fixed, predictable reward for your service. But until that service is used by your client(s) to create an impactful product, I’d say it has had a limited impact on the economy.

When majority of players start selling shovels, we end up with an ecosystem thats full of robust tooling and infrastructure, but lacking in real-world applications that actually transform the society and the economy.

In other words, if you’re considering your next tech startup, please consider working on a B2C product that directly adds value to the end user. Maybe its time to Dig for Gold!