> The one caveat I would mention here would be infrastructure startups (disclaimer: I run one and am therefore highly biased) where you have things like databases,containers,AI platforms,.. where the technology vision matters in terms of appealing to a technical user base or where merits are based on the technology solving a real problem.
Lately I've also heard these called tech-first startups (disclosure: I do contracted dev work for one).
At first I thought it was a redundant, unnecessary label, but given your contrast to efficiency play style startups, it feels like a useful and concise descriptor.
I'm mainly aware of this distinction because of a unique problem with AI startups.
Technically an AI platform and an AI product company (we call this vertical specific) are both "AI startups".
There is a larger trend in the industry that typically these "platform" companies are a solution looking for a problem (this is often the case). These companies are typically SAAS and get acquired.
What you see more of now a days are AI "product" companies focused on a particular problem like say: sales ops.
The "platform" people seem to have moved on to "chat bots" now. It seems like the same trend will play out though: "chat bots" for specific verticals.
That being said: As a founder of a startup that somewhat bucked this trend (focusing on an oracle type business model in various markets rather than SAAS and selling to developers) we focus mainly on a few key areas to make money.
The way we do this is "core technology" bundled with some sort of an "app", in our case being fraud detection solutions with a "land and expand" type approach. The thesis is we can see some of the benefits of being a tech-first startup (lock in and broad usage) but keep focused like a product company would be.
Lately I've also heard these called tech-first startups (disclosure: I do contracted dev work for one).
At first I thought it was a redundant, unnecessary label, but given your contrast to efficiency play style startups, it feels like a useful and concise descriptor.