Kobie Fuller, partner at Upfront Ventures, had the idea that there were certain characteristics that every successful enterprise software company had in common. You might think that this is not something that can be easily identified or identified, perhaps just something any investor knows or senses when they see it. But Fuller decided to sit down and find out what those elements were, and he created a framework that he’s launching today.
What Fuller came up with, dubbed FABRIC, is a way to measure and understand what enterprise software companies are likely to succeed at. “Fabric is my overarching thesis on how I think about software, and where I’m going to invest in the next decade-plus,” Fuller told TechCrunch.
There are six components that are believed to be important for companies to prioritize and differentiate themselves, including being agile, bold, rewarding, integrated and community-based.
He says, while not every company has to have every one of these attributes out of the gate, it does give him a basis for thinking about the enterprise software companies he invests in. “It’s about boiling things down in a common language and I just” state what anyone building the next generation of enterprise software companies should think about – and use as a guide on how to shape their business into their company. “
Fuller says that with tens of thousands of SaaS companies out there now, and the number growing all the time, companies need to think about how they can stand out, and what makes buyers and users switch to one solution over the other. He believes it should be fast and fun to use, which is Something users rely on and come back to.
He uses the term addiction, but what he means is that the software should be designed this way, so useful and easy to use that you keep coming back to it, and that you designed the software in such a way that it turns the industry on its head. This includes the first three elements of being fast, addictive, and daring.
On top of all that, it should give you a reward, and helping you complete a task faster means you get your work done faster. It should also integrate into your existing technology systems, teams, and workflows. Finally, there should be a whole community around it that helps you and that you feel like a part of because you are using this software.
All of this may sound like common sense, but building software that does it all is no easy task. Once you do that, and start selling it within the organization, you make it very difficult to stop using it or switch to another vendor that sells a similar service because users have completely bought into the idea of this product, this company.
One startup that really embodies this idea, he says, is Figma, the company Adobe is trying to buy for $20 billion. Figma embodies all of these texture ingredients – it’s fast, addictive, daring, and value-rewarding. They are deeply integrated, have done an incredible job and have built a community from day one.”
It’s about documenting something Fuller learned over the years when he started a company and was an investor. Prior to joining Upfront Ventures, Fuller was Director of Marketing at Revolve, a Los Angeles-based fashion e-commerce company.
“We’re trying to apply some of these principles that we’ve learned across all aspects of our general background experience, especially in the area of (working with) consumers and trying to distill it down to something very simple, very powerful, that anyone can have and then allow for a common language to create software,” he said. Fuller.