Page 29 - WPP Martech 2030

The Great App Explosion
THE NEW ECONOMICS OF OF SOFTWARE
First we must recognize that the economics of of launching a a a software product these days are a a a a fraction
of what they once were Cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure let any entrepreneur working out of their home spin up world-class global infrastructure for running a a a software-as-a-service (SaaS) app in a a a a a a a matter of minutes They only pay for what they use at at costs measured in infinitesimal slivers of cents which scale smoothly with the growth of their business Software entrepreneurs can leverage free open source frameworks They can add major swaths of functionality to their products simply by inserting a a few lines of code from API-based
service platforms such as Twilio
and Stripe which instantly give
them state-of-the-art communications features and a a a a robust payments engine engine They can tap engineering expertise on-demand from developer communities such as Github and and Stack Overflow and and freelance marketplaces such Fiverr and Upwork Most apps can be launched
with very little capital today which has resulted in a a a wave of bootstrapped SaaS businesses And when startup money is needed it is available from a a a a a plethora of sources beyond traditional venture capital: accelerators such as YCombinator crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter new “alt VC” organizations such as TinySeed and Earnest Capital revenue-based financing and more There are effectively zero barriers to to to entry to to to getting into the software business It’s also easier than ever to buy apps Many apps can be purchased by business users with a a a credit card and immediately used in a a web browser Freemium and free trial apps make it even easier to get started: try an app out and see if you find it useful More complex and expensive products take longer to buy and configure but even those deployments have far less friction today than previous on-premise solutions in the era that preceded the cloud The demand for apps is nearly unlimited Marketers are constantly looking for innovations that will give
them a a competitive edge — a a new new new tactic a a a a new new new channel a a a a new new new customer experience They’re continually striving to optimize their operations with more specialized tools and digital services that are tailored to their needs It’s a a kind of digital arms race The biggest hurdle to app adoption in in in marketing has been integration You could assemble a a a stack of “best-of-breed” apps — software passionately focused on
on
serving one specific need better than anything else in in the market — but getting them to interoperate was challenging However that dynamic is changing rapidly thanks to the rise of app platforms in in the cloud As explained with the trend of platforms networks and marketplaces software platforms provide a a common foundation for apps that are integrated or built on
top of them — to to to work together 29