Rob Walling

So moving from least amount of platform risk, what I consider the least amount up to the most amount of platform risk, basically, you have the most exposure and the most risk of your business being killed. And so I'm going to go one through eight, again, where one is the lowest eight is the highest, the most dangerous. Level one is almost no platform risk.

It is where you own your own server in a cage with redundant power. You run your own SMTP servers to send emails. The platform risk here is any development language you use, right? Plus your internet service. I mean, basically you are not reliant on a host. You're not reliant on anything to send email. You're not built in no code. I guess you're, oh, and you're risking

It is where you own your own server in a cage with redundant power. You run your own SMTP servers to send emails. The platform risk here is any development language you use, right? Plus your internet service. I mean, basically you are not reliant on a host. You're not reliant on anything to send email. You're not built in no code. I guess you're, oh, and you're risking

is where are you getting leads from? Do you have customer concentration in where you're getting leads from? In this case, I'm assuming there's just almost none, right? You have this great variety of leads coming from all over the place and there's no customer concentration in terms of them being reliant on an external API.

is where are you getting leads from? Do you have customer concentration in where you're getting leads from? In this case, I'm assuming there's just almost none, right? You have this great variety of leads coming from all over the place and there's no customer concentration in terms of them being reliant on an external API.

So this one's, it's so unrealistic, I just kind of want to skip by it because none of us are going to do that, right? The second level of platform risk, I think of it as you being reliant on a platform that is a relative commodity and it's easy to switch away from. Again, relatively easy. I know we could make an argument. I'm going to say SendGrid and Twilio, an SMS provider, email provider.

So this one's, it's so unrealistic, I just kind of want to skip by it because none of us are going to do that, right? The second level of platform risk, I think of it as you being reliant on a platform that is a relative commodity and it's easy to switch away from. Again, relatively easy. I know we could make an argument. I'm going to say SendGrid and Twilio, an SMS provider, email provider.

Those are commoditized assets. And they are relatively easy to switch. There's no lead flow. There's no customer concentration, right? It truly is just a replacement decision. And one might say, well, SendGrid integration will take you months to migrate away from. Usually that's not the case. Usually it's a couple weeks.

Those are commoditized assets. And they are relatively easy to switch. There's no lead flow. There's no customer concentration, right? It truly is just a replacement decision. And one might say, well, SendGrid integration will take you months to migrate away from. Usually that's not the case. Usually it's a couple weeks.

I believe we did this with Drip because we went from, we had three or four different email providers that we were using that were APIs that sent emails. And it would take us a matter of weeks to switch and we were sending hundreds of millions of emails a month. So Again, this is why it's probably the most realistic one that a lot of us are exposed to. And this is where it always bothers me.

I believe we did this with Drip because we went from, we had three or four different email providers that we were using that were APIs that sent emails. And it would take us a matter of weeks to switch and we were sending hundreds of millions of emails a month. So Again, this is why it's probably the most realistic one that a lot of us are exposed to. And this is where it always bothers me.

I'll be on X Twitter and someone will say, oh man, you build on Airtable or Bubble and there's platform risk. And some smart aleck comes in and says, oh yeah, well, you host on AWS and that's a platform. And you send emails through SendGrid and so that's also a platform and you have risk too. And it's like, but they're not the same. And that's the point of this list.

I'll be on X Twitter and someone will say, oh man, you build on Airtable or Bubble and there's platform risk. And some smart aleck comes in and says, oh yeah, well, you host on AWS and that's a platform. And you send emails through SendGrid and so that's also a platform and you have risk too. And it's like, but they're not the same. And that's the point of this list.

is to have them in order of increasing risk or exposure. And I think being reliant on a commodity, whether it's hosting or whether it is, you know, an API of some sort, I think at the same level as like, imagine if you have a VPS or you have like a Docker container and you're on commodity hosting somewhere and you can basically just pull that and spin it up in a

is to have them in order of increasing risk or exposure. And I think being reliant on a commodity, whether it's hosting or whether it is, you know, an API of some sort, I think at the same level as like, imagine if you have a VPS or you have like a Docker container and you're on commodity hosting somewhere and you can basically just pull that and spin it up in a

I don't know, half a day, a day, two days, whatever. It's that relatively low switching cost and it is commoditized. I think that fits in this category as well. So the third level of platform risk, which is just a little riskier than the one I just mentioned, is when you're using these large cloud providers, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Azure,

I don't know, half a day, a day, two days, whatever. It's that relatively low switching cost and it is commoditized. I think that fits in this category as well. So the third level of platform risk, which is just a little riskier than the one I just mentioned, is when you're using these large cloud providers, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Azure,

This is where they, you know, you still don't have customer concentration or lead flow. That's irrelevant, right? Obviously, those are more dangerous. And so those are in the, you know, the higher levels of platform risk. But moving away from AWS, GCP, Azure, whoever else, it's not just spinning up a Docker thing and moving the VPS or whatever.

This is where they, you know, you still don't have customer concentration or lead flow. That's irrelevant, right? Obviously, those are more dangerous. And so those are in the, you know, the higher levels of platform risk. But moving away from AWS, GCP, Azure, whoever else, it's not just spinning up a Docker thing and moving the VPS or whatever.

I think the switching cost is significantly more than moving away from an API, you know, like a SendGrid or an SMS, because this is the infrastructure where your entire app is and you start to get reliant on a lot of services. And so this one also has a varying degree. It's a slider of like, well, if I'm only using an EC2 instance and everything's there, then... maybe low-ish switching costs.