Finishing what we started: the real opportunities in Messaging
In April, 2016 (a mere 7 months ago…) Mark Zuckerberg, David Marcus (and, in a smaller side-tent, myself) got on stage proclaiming the future of business was conversation. Imagine the opportunity to communicate with one billion potential customers — in a personal, private space — as easy and delightful as messaging your best friend.
But for the first few months, it felt more like messaging your ex-girlfriend — poor response times, misunderstanding intent and overall frustration. So the question on everyone’s mind: what’s real vs. hype, and when will the future arrive?
The promise…
1. Business used to be personal. The store owner knew your name and your shoe size. Then, the internet came, and brought scale, but replaced Bob the cobbler with a faceless white form and text box.
Messaging offered a chance to make business personal again (at scale).
2. Customer service — the frontline for a business and their customers, was broken. Businesses spent over $10 billion per year to provide the most frustrating experience of your week. Phone calls required your complete attention, expensive human operators, and slow response times.
Messaging offered an opportunity to provide mobile service, automate common questions, reduce costs and increase quality.
3. When people shifted their time from desktop to mobile, the money didn’t follow. The screens were too small, payment was cumbersome, and the browsing experience didn’t work — you had to choose between a clunky mobile website or go through the hassle of downloading an app just to make a simple purchase. So, you still booked your flights on your laptop.
Messaging offered the perfect solution for mobile commerce — better than a mobile website and less-friction than an app, with built-in identity + payments.
4. Consumer software had a distribution problem. Half of US smartphone owners download zero apps per month. Apps are best for things you use frequently. Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Snapchat, Maps. But what about the flight you take once every two months? Or the restaurant reservation you make once/month? How can you interact with the 100s of businesses and services in your life without downloading custom software each time?
Messaging is already the hub for the plans you make with your family and friends — it could also seamlessly connect you with the 100s of products and services that make those interactions more meaningful.
The reality…
And then we messaged the future. We asked for the weather in Oakland and we got an ad lib from the latest Star Wars movie. It didn’t feel like the future (or maybe it did…).
In essence, messaging followed the same sequence as many new adoptions in technology…
- The right tools became available in an open platform
→ WeChat, Kik, Telegram, Slack, and now Facebook Messenger - Hobbyists and first movers experimented to find what works / what doesn’t
→ Games, shopping, productivity, news - The killer app. Through iteration & perseverance, a “magic moment” is created for people and/or businesses.
→ This wave is just starting - The explosion
→ TBD
The opportunity…
I left my role as the Product Manager for the Facebook Messenger Developer Platform 6-weeks ago to help realize the future of people to business messaging from the other side.
Here are the four most actionable opportunities right now in the messaging space:
1. Re-invent customer service. Shifting platforms from phone calls to messaging, by itself, is a better experience. Even if it takes 45 minutes for the business to respond, you’re not chained to your phone. But the exciting part comes next: automation, instant responses, seamless transactions, and hyper personalization — services that can anticipate your needs before you even need to ask. Customer service will no longer be a cost centre — it will drive retention, delight and revenue.
2. Accelerate mobile commerce. Messaging allows companies to complete the marketing funnel → awareness (via News Feed), search & explore (via Messenger), and purchase (via Messenger). It’s simply better than mobile websites, apps or email. Imagine scheduling test drives, booking real estate appointments, or inquiring about TVs over Messenger, with seamless purchase & delivery.
3. Vertical-specific assistants. Healthcare forms are boring. A personal, private, digital assistant? Useful. Innovative companies are popping up to bring personalization & personal empowerment to important areas of your life including healthcare, finance, and personal logistics.
4. Interact with the world. I imagine a world where you can message your house to turn up the temperature, turn on the lights, and pre-heat the oven. Your fridge will then message you that it’s low on horse radish (g-d forbid). The Amazon bot will complete the order at the tap of a button.
There are multiple frontiers on the path to eCommerce taking over the world. In the 90s, people thought you would be crazy to buy something on the internet. Then came trust, payments (paypal), easy shipments (amazon) and easy returns (Zappos — you can buy shoes on the internet?). Then came social, real identity, and the next wave of trust (you would get in the car with a stranger you met on the internet?). Now, with conversation, and the ability to bring personalized sales to the internet, comes the next frontier. In Q32016, eCommerce made up just 8% of all retail sales in the US — $100 billion of $1.2 trillion. Who’s going to capture the remaining trillion?
When you talk to three different people about bots you get three different responses:
the entrepreneur: “it’s the future”
the contrarian VC: “it’s all hype”
everyone else in the world: “what’s a bot”
The platform shift is real. The problems are real. Now, who’s going to solve them?
If you’re building a company in the messaging space and want to chat, message me!
