Read our previous update here.

What we’ve learned

• Inventory planning is a real problem, just not a venture backable one. Problem resonates most w/businesses w/spiky sales, unclear beyond that. Land and expand strategy is also unclear. Excellent place to build a bootstrapped business.

• FP&A tools command huge markets. Obvious juicy negative NPS targets (Anaplan, Adaptive). Key is figuring out the initial “hair on fire” problem that’s painful enough to pull someone away from Excel. Low confidence in plays that sit on top of Excel. Doubtful of a winner-take-all emerging (which is OK). Incumbents have still not woken up to the new reality of StratFin, yielding opportunities for upstarts. Still feel comfortable about placing a bet here, with an entry point around helping finance retrieve/process/join their multi source data (more here).

• ERPs are a business’ system of record. Near impossible to disintermediate and endless room for lateral expansion. Again, interesting backdrop w/antiquated incumbents like Netsuite. Skeptical of a one-size-fits-all winner emerging because business complexity is only going up, necessitating specialization. Requires founders that are patient, and willing to play the long game. Verticalized ERPs chasing an antiquated industry seems like a fine bet to make.

What’s exciting us

While exploring FP&A, we learned about the massive deployment cycles these tools require. We heard this again when exploring ERPs.

Solutions consultants come in, spend months customizing the tool to your need, migrate your data, and train you on the product. It’s an expensive undertaking (high five figures), and it’s a long one (~3-6 months). The kicker? The business adopting the tool has to be actively involved w/performing data exports, educating the consultants about their business, and undergoing training.

Can these shops charge more if they deliver on a shorter timeline? What role do AI engineer agents play in proprietary environments like SAP or Salesforce? Is there a way for technology to understand how a business works, based on data alone? What’s an entry point look like when going after a services industry?

These are some of the questions we’re asking as we go deeper.

How we’re doing

Zeeshan and his wife brought baby Haroun to the world. Haroun sits in our calls and can already be seen mouthing his first words: enterprise resource planning. Zeeshan also picked up a Surron.

Manish fell on his Surron but is mostly fine. He also said goodbye to his aunt in the UK, before she passed away from breast cancer. His new favorite hobby is running.