Vision without a cost list is a wish
Everyone in this room has sat through a vision talk. They usually involve a mountain, a horizon, and no specifics whatsoever. I want to do the opposite: I want to tell you what we are going to give up.
A strategy that costs nothing is not a strategy. It is a wish with a nice slide.
The bet
Here is the one sentence: for the next ten years, we are betting that the value moves to whoever holds the relationship with the user, not whoever holds the biggest dataset.
If that is true — and I think it is, but I could be wrong — then everything about how we build changes. We build for the person holding the relationship. We make money by making them more valuable, not by extracting the value ourselves.
Three things we are giving up
One: we are giving up the platform tax. Starting this quarter, we take 0% on the first year of any integration partner's revenue. That is roughly 2 million of near-term revenue we are choosing not to collect. I want everyone to know that number, because when someone asks why our growth chart looks different next year, this is why.
Two: we are giving up short-term exclusivity deals. Every exclusivity clause we have signed is a bet against our own product. If our product is better, we do not need a contract to keep you. All existing exclusivity clauses come up for renewal over eighteen months and we will not extend a single one.
Three: we are giving up two features people love. The dashboard builder and the custom scripting layer. Together they are used by 4% of accounts and consume 31% of engineering time. Sunsetting them will be unpopular with a small, loud, and completely correct group of users, and we will give them eighteen months' notice and a migration path. This is the one I expect you to argue with me about.
What we are buying with it
Three things: a reputation as the partner that does not squeeze, an engineering team that is not maintaining two products for 4% of users, and the freedom to be the place where other people build their business.
How we will know if I am wrong
Two numbers, reported to this room every quarter for a decade. Partner retention without exclusivity, and revenue per partner.
If partner retention drops below 70% two years after we stop using contracts, my bet was wrong, and I will say so here, out loud, and we will change course.
That is the whole strategy. One bet, three sacrifices, two numbers, ten years. Let's go.