The Full-Stack Startup
Q: So what’s a full stack startup? You’ve mentioned that it’s a new, important trend, and a pattern of startups we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
Chris Dixon: The old approach startups took was to sell or license their new technology to incumbents. The new, “full stack” approach is to build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses incumbents and other competitors.
A good example from big companies is Apple versus Microsoft. For years, Microsoft just built pieces of the stack — the OS, apps — and relied on partners to build semiconductors, cases, assembly, do retail etc. Apple does everything: they design their own chips, their own phone hardware, their own OS, their own apps, the packaging, the retail experience etc. Apple reminded the world that you could create a really magical experience if you did many things well at once.
.. Q. What are the main challenges for full stack startups?
Dixon: Full stack founders care about every aspect of their product/service, so they need to get good at many different things besides software — hardware, design, consumer marketing, supply chain management, sales, partnerships, regulation, etc. It takes a special kind of founder to do this.
The good news is if they pull it off, it will be extremely hard for competitors to replicate all those interlocking pieces.