🚨 Don’t miss it — Consumer AI Earthquakes POV drops next week!
💥 In their latest Atlas deep dive, Jeremy Levine, Alexandra Sukin, and Rayouf Alhumedhi explore where they see the biggest Consumer AI opportunities today, how emerging technologies are shaping new business models, and what it takes to build AI-native products that drive viral adoption and long-term defensibility. 💥
🔗 Sign up here to get it first → https://lnkd.in/efsW8EBP
But before we dive into the AI era, let’s rewind to where it all started: Kent Bennett’s “Consumer Earthquakes” (Atlas Archives, circa 2020).
Here are five consumer founder takeaways from Episode 1 that still hold true:
1. Consumer startups are high-risk, high-reward. When they work, they grow explosively—faster than enterprise companies.
2. Viral adoption is everything. The best consumer products spread organically and scale rapidly.
3. Good isn’t good enough. Your product must be so compelling that people can’t ignore it.
4. Consumer success can seem unpredictable— just like an earthquake. Few companies make it, but those that do change the world.
5. Bessemer has studied the patterns of breakout consumer startups—now, we’re sharing the secrets.
🎥 Watch the full Consumer Earthquakes series—links in the comments.
And stay tuned for next week’s Consumer AI Earthquakes POV 🔥 → https://lnkd.in/efsW8EBP#Consumer#AI#Startups#AI#TechonLinkedIn#entrepreneurship#venturecapital
Hi, I'm Ken from Bessemer here to talk about how to build truly earth shattering consumer businesses. Cool. So you're starting a consumer facing business. Do you know exactly how crazy that is? Because here's the math. Every year, 12,000 of you will start a consumer facing business, and of those, two, maybe three, maybe four, and a banner year will actually succeed on a global scale. And you know this because you are a consumer. You know exactly how lazy you are, how busy your life is, how many things you're competing for, your attention. How often do you actually change your behavior in a major way? It takes a massive movement of the earth for you to start adopting a new product. You've heard about SAS software, right? We're in like a golden age for software built for businesses. Your odds of success are 10 times as good. And that's because businesses will tell you exactly what they want, what they need. They'll tell you what they would pay for it. Consumers have no freaking idea what they want until you put it right in front of them. And then they have no way of telling you if they still might want it a year from now. Don't you want to build an app for like a garbage company? I bet you could sell them a routing software. They'd love it. They'd pay you for it. Don't garbage companies deserve your love? I will give you one thing. There's almost nothing like a consumer startup that actually works. I mean, it almost never happens, but when it does, there's nothing like it. Consumers freak out. They line up around the block, they tell all their friends about you, and you start to grow really fast. Like 10 times every year for years on end. And if that growth doesn't kill you, it can make you rich. Enterprise startups can take a decade or even longer to get to a billion dollar valuation even when they work. Pinterest and Airbnb did it in three years. I think it took Uber 4. I guess the point is that consumer home runs are just different. Calling them unicorns doesn't quite get it. Unicorns are kind of cute and not nearly as rare as they used to be. The thing you're hunting for. Is unbelievably rare, completely unpredictable, and when it happens, it can grow so fast it can kill you if you don't know what you're doing. This isn't a Unicorn. This is more like an earthquake. And that makes you an earthquake hunter. There's nothing harder to do in the startup world. Frankly, we're in awe of you for even trying. I mean, we still think you're completely crazy. But if you're still here, we might as well try to help. We've surveyed thousands of consumers in the past decades and looked at every consumer earthquake we can get our hands on to try to discover the few secrets that separate the earthquakes from all the rest. And we'll share them with you today, starting with the most important lesson of all. Whatever you do, do not build a good product.
Recommended reading below — Get Consumer AI insights: https://bessemervp.team/41gLOaB Consumer Earthquakes (Series): https://bessemervp.team/41Bqk9V Consumer Cloud is back from the dead: https://bessemervp.team/4idISlK Distribution and conversion models for consumer startups: https://bessemervp.team/41E2omk