So, you are a business owner, a maker, independent services provider or something else in between? And you are having a rough time, no access to the market, some company take some big cut from you by using their services or yours are facing fierce competition from the big guy?
This might give you a light on the end of the tunnel …
The background
Sometimes ago, I was exploring what kind of education system needed to be related to what world my kids will face in the future. In order to do so, I began to map the shift that I think will happen to the business world of the future.
Then, since I’m following the blockchain ecosystem quite close lately, it is natural for me to see from blockchain perspective. I began to draw how the blockchain works and how it will change the way we do business, how the blockchain will change our relationship with other in person or business manner and how the blockchain will change the way we acquired our needs in the future.
I hope that from the pattern, I can predict what kind of works (or jobs) available for my kids in the future, and prepare their education related to the shift.
But the result is quite interesting to me and i think it is worth sharing. I manage to draw how we as person or as a business will interact with other whenever they are our costumer, or our business partners, and how we acquired goods and services in the future.
I only have two example for now, but i think you will get the picture and can easily rediscover similar pattern in other sector or subject.
For the first one, I’am using Gojek as an example. If you don’t know Gojek, it is a ride sharing platform (with many other services serve on top of it). It is one of Indonesia first unicorn startup with many big guys like Google, Tencent and Sequoia Capital now invest in them.
The Present time Gojek model
What do they do? Basically, Gojek is localized version of Uber with a twist. It is an app based ride-hailing/sharing services. But when Uber focuses on car, Gojek focus more on motorcycle taxi than the car (although they offer car ride too).
And again, just like Uber, they don’t have any car or motorcycle. The car and motorcycle are owned by independent driver and rider.
Today, Gojek has grown and offered many services on top of the driver and rider partners community they’d build. Services from food delivery, massage, house cleaning, moving services to payment system are now available in their app.
Ok, let’s go deeper and see how this will change.
Imagine that you have a motorcycle, and you run your personal motorcycle taxi services, which we call Ojek in Indonesia (Ojek — Gojek, can you see the rhyme here).
We will see your market reach, as an independent motorcycle taxi provider in the past before Gojek, present day with Gojek and in the future when Gojek (as the middle man) is no longer needed and replaced by blockchain technology.
In the past, as an Ojek, a motorcycle taxi provider, your market is limited. Your pattern is, every day, you wait near a neighborhood, a market or where people are gathered. If someone needs your services, they will look to you and come to you.
Your market reach is as long as an eyesight. It is small and limited in both reach and what kind of services you can offer.
Now, with Gojek, when someone needs your services, they will open the Gojek app, all you have to do is tap on the app to get the order. Your reach is now wider than an eyesight, as long as you within range of Gojek time to customer algorithm (at least that what I think). And, you can even offer different services now, like delivering food, movie ticket or package.
But, as a middleman Gojek is stood between you and your market. You need them, your customer needs them. They also have or take a bigger value than you. I mean, let’s say that your revenue for each day is around USD 20. Gojek in the meantime is valued USD 3 billion (Januari 2018) according to Techcrunch. Ok, I know that revenue is different than valuation, but I think you’ve got my point.
What about in the future, when blockchain rules and run everything?
The future with Blockchain
One of the promises of the blockchain is, it can provide an infrastructure that enables direct connection between the party (you can read my previous article about blockchain use case here). It can be communication, transaction or else. No more middleman needed.
What happens to you now as an Ojek, as a motorcycle taxi provider?
With the blockchain technology, you won’t need Gojek anymore. Just like in the past you will reach your customer directly, but you will have the same wider market you can grab as big as when you use Gojek services.
How is that possible? How can I reach my customer if Gojek is not present? Or will it just another middleman, but not Gojek?
Let’s see the graphics above, the future part.
I think in the future, with blockchain, instead of close, monolithic, vertical integration services owned by one company, a direct connection will be provided by infrastructure builder and maybe an analytics services provider.
This infrastructure builder is the startup of the future. In the present time, what Gojek do is developing a closed proprietary system when you and I have to enter, harvest our data, process for their benefit and take the big chunk of the value of the ecosystem.
In the future, the infrastructure builder approach is to build a connection point and smart contract for setting up the transaction for you on top of the public blockchain platform like Ethereum for example.
If you want to use this infrastructure, you will need to pay them (you pay for the computation power used), just like a toll road/paid highway. But the payment is done directly from your customer to you, triggered by real-time forcible autonomous smart contract. No human needed, no some company dictated your income. Is all seamless, autonomous done by a smart contract algorithm, again running on top of the blockchain?
Also, the data you generate is now can be yours. They say data is the new oil, very valuable and very powerful. In the blockchain future, you can even monetize it by selling your data for some money. With a platform like Streamr, now, we can buy, sell and analyze data.
The difference when you use the current service provider is, first their system decided who can take the order, they decide the price and how much you can take, is some case, the payment goes through their payment system, you’ll get your money later.
And don’t forget, they now possess your valuable data which can be monetized further, and you give it to them for free.
This is how we will interact with our customer of other business in the future.
It will be a direct connection from you to other through an open infrastructure that able autonomously set up a business contract, condition, agreement, and payment for you.
And that can be applied for many things and works both ways (you as a provider or as a customer), from property rent (like Airbnb), buying goods or services to investment, you name it.
If you are a positive thinker, there are many opportunities in this model. But one thing, the business model have to change for sure, you need to find where the value is.
Oh, I promised two example .. but well, I think this article is long enough. I will make the other example as separate article in the future.
And that’s it. As always, I might have wrong about this, because I’m only a human :) If you have different opinion or point of view, I always open for discussion.
Thanks for reading :)
