There’s a considerable amount of literature on the subject of startups and a fair amount of consensus around certain ideas. Some of these can be hard, even misleading, to apply to the DCM space – “move fast and break things”? err... tell that to compliance. But one concept that does ring true is the 5 customer types: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Not everybody thinks the same, but equally there’s a limit (and distribution) to the diversity of opinion, and this captures it well.
Ultimately it’s a subjective value assessment. The “5 types” rule suggests many do not value technological improvements enough to justify the failure risk. However many will, so long as the pros and cons of moving earlier are properly understood. To be clear, I’m not talking about the pros and cons of the technology – obviously if an idea doesn’t resonate, customers won’t be interested. Here I mean, assuming it resonates, what are the pros and cons of being early or late.
It’s easy to tell our audience how the app can help them, but making a compelling case for investing now versus later is harder because it’s less objective. The foremost reason in our opinion is, when it comes to the fast-moving digitalization of DCM, do you want to be part of the conversation or not? A curious bi-stander can tell you what each new capital market FinTech claims to do, whereas an active user knows exactly what they have achieved. They have an experience-based understanding of potential IT-driven change and how it can be leveraged.
Furthermore, software is usually most malleable in the early years. Whilst our bi-stander is waiting for a tried-and-tested product, first-movers are tailoring the software’s development to suit their interests. Their interests may align, but there’s more room to manoeuvre than you might think.
It also gives early adopters more presence in the FinTech ecosystem and a higher likelihood of hearing relevant stories from the community.
Today Bots is already used by hundreds of DCM and syndicate staff globally. As well as the immediate “as-advertised” core-benefits, our partners are experiencing first-hand the DCM space’s IT evolution. If you too believe that IT can bring meaningful improvements to the way you work and you see value in shaping the evolution, please reach out to us via LinkedIn.