"Distributed-first" is the new "mobile-first" in the search for unicorns

I don’t try to predict the future, I just try to identify it before it’s, like, totes obvi with the humble stash of personal dry powder at my disposal. The VC’s prescient enough to identify “mobile first” (as one of, albeit not the only, core theses) ahead of the curve (Instagram, Snap, Uber) are now fighting each other for position atop the Midas list.

A similar shift is already happening in the workplace, as a larger and larger % of the workplace works remotely. Incumbents will start to tailor their platforms to accommodate this, but the tools that were built for distributed workforces from the ground up will have a chance to be the next Instagram, Snap and Uber’s of the b2b SaaS world. There’s already been smashing successes that touch on this thesis (Zoom).

Another great example is Slack, which I would posit as being extremely “remote friendly”, but not necessarily “remote first”. IMO, a good way of differentiating the two would be, would a remote team look at the product versus alternatives, and it’s a slam dunk, that that’s the right platform to use based on the fact that it was purpose-built from the ground up to serve distributed teams?

A good source of inspiration (I think, I’m not a gamer) could be found in consumer — we see things like twitch, discord and even the games themselves (fortnite) that seamlessly address the fact that their users are almost never in the same physical location.

Here’s another contrived example - for a very long time, using payphones was the standard, no one questioned it. Then mobile phones came along, and once they became affordable, the thought of using a payphone became laughable. Somewhere along that continuum was an incredible investment opportunity. Similarly, there will be new tools and platforms that serve distributed workforces that emerge that make the old way of doing things look downright silly in retrospect, but along the way there will be incredible investment opportunities.