Marc Andreessen once said, “There are only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is unbundle.” While he credits this to his former colleague Jim Barksdale, this idea has resonated with me for almost a decade when I first heard it in 2014. While this process is not unidirectional, both bundling and unbundling play crucial roles in making money in business.

My current project, GarageID is exactly this, and we’re using Agile/Scrum to ensure we quickly build the right bundle for the automotive & motorsport world.

We’ve chosen to combine. The automotive world is fractured. We aim to change this.

High Level Considerations for Any Startup

1.  Bundling and Unbundling in the Digital Age:The digital age has witnessed a significant emphasis on unbundling, where traditional products and institutions are disaggregated into individual components. Examples include the transformation of music CDs into individual MP3 tracks and the unbundling of newspapers through blogs and topic-specific news sites.Digital education startups are now attempting to unbundle the traditional university model, reflecting a broader trend across various industries to reevaluate and redefine traditional bundled offerings. I think this is an amazing idea as most universities are scams these days.
2.  The Duality of Making Money in Business:To bundle or not? To unbundle or not? – This perspective sheds light on the dual nature of business strategies, where companies must choose between combining products and services into cohesive bundles or breaking them apart into individual offerings.The bundling and unbundling approach is not limited to the digital age but has historical roots. Barksdale shares a memorable quote from a roadshow during Netscape’s public offering, emphasizing the idea that these principles have been relevant for decades.
3.  Technological Evolution and Business Restructuring:Technological advancements drive the emergence of new bundles and the dissolution of existing ones. For instance, changes in distribution technology led to the unbundling of newspapers, and the advent of the internet facilitated the unbundling of music CDs.The cable industry (legacy media) is another example, where debates about bundling versus unbundling are prevalent. The ease of digital unbundling challenges traditional bundled cable offerings, leading to the rise of over-the-top systems delivering single-shot, unbundled content. We still have a long way to go with systems like Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and more.

Consumer Preferences Are Always Changing

Our quest to bundle the right functionality for the automotive & motorsport world has been fascinating. Currently, the user landscape is used to silo’d applications and leveraging a suite of disparate systems. While this has worked as a function of market needs, users are getting fatigued managing multiple systems.

Do you own a car? Do you have to pay for maintenance and services? – What app do you use? – If you’re not using an app to reduce machine costs… why?

This has been one of the biggest results of feedback with our early-stage users.

Successful companies are those that navigate the delicate balance between bundling and unbundling, recognizing that both strategies are integral to the ever-changing landscape of business and technology.

I would go as far as to say that a it may be a powerful strategic advantage to review one’s product offering at least twice a year to consider whether to bundle more features, or unbundle (reduce waste) is necessary.

We’ve all used Microsoft Excel. We all probably use a less than 1% of the total features. This isn’t to say that Excel isn’t a powerful tool for the pro-users, but the majority of users don’t care about the power tools. They just want functionality that:

• works
• is valuable
• easy

To ensure 80%+ functionality usage rate is almost impossible. To get close is always the goal. You can do this in persona life as well. Retrospection on optimizing life is always a worthy time spent. It is my hope that all of us can reduce waste, optimize life for fullness of experiences, and ensure our lives are not wasted doom-scrolling social media.

Inspect and adapt, always.

All the best,
ps

Thank you everyone who took the time to check out my latest creation. It’s not perfect yet, it’s still being formed, and we have a LONG way to go. There is much to be built and tons of feedback needs to be incorporated to ensure a global audience can use it effectively.

The amount of inbound and support has been amazing, though we still need to hit our goal to get to the next rounds of funding and building!

GOALS + MOAR WIN!

• $250,000 crowdfunding to get us to public launch – Support me here!
• MORE WAYS TO WIN! – If you want extra chances to win with GarageID raffle, take a screenshot of your profile and post to socials tagging us (after you sign up through Kickstarter):Tiktok – https://www.tiktok.com/@MyGarageIDInstagram – http://instagram.com/YourGarageID

  Twitter – http://twitter.com/MyGarageID

  YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@garageid

  LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/garageid
  

MEET THE TEAM

This week we’re launching our weekly MEET THE GID TEAM series on our GarageID newsletter. Our first up is Senter Smith!

We’re a bunch of car dudes who want to build our dreams. Thank you for helping us improve the racing world!

Hammer down!

Best,
ps

Thank you everyone who has supported my first ever Kickstarter campaign.

We’ve done so much work over the last year to prepare our systems for Launch Team members who want to help our project become a success after we launch public.

We’re learning so much through this experience!

Did you know that we’re staying true to our promises of daily updates? This means we’re updating the entire journey on our Kickstarter page with VIDEO UPDATES and posts! I didn’t want to inundate you all with daily newsletters, so if you’re interested in daily videos and updates on what we’re learning through our fundraising campaign, find your way over to our Kickstarter post page here.

In summary, fundraising is ASKING FOR MONEY. In many ways, this is a powerful mechanism for operator maturity. Meaning, if you’re going to do any type of fundraising for any type of project… you must humble yourself and ask your networks… every. single. day.

You will learn how to ask better. You will learn that asking is always free. You’ll learn that the success of your project is a function of your work-effort. You’ll realize that nobody will help you build your dreams unless you ask. You’ll learn that in order to build the life you want… you have to do it yourself.

People wrongly think that [if you build it, they will come]. This only happens in the field of dreams.

Nothing gets built without 1000% effort behind the scenes. Fundraising is a full-time job. It’s packed with uncertainty. One must gird up they loins for the grind.

It’s hard. But it’s worth it.

Thank you again for everyone giving digital and vocal support of my project.

I still need more to go! Would you be willing to send me $50 in support or let your network know your homie needs support?

I’d greatly appreciate it!

All the best,
ps

I’m going to be repeating the stark reality of fundraising once again, and I’ll probably touch on it several times in the next 54 days: “You must ask for money.”

Part of asking for money is activating your friend network.

You have friends, or so you think. Tapping them and asking them for funding support can be rough, especially if times are tough.

There is value in asking your friend network. It’ll tell you who your friends really are… and in some cases, reveal things that you’ve missed about them.

That’s not to say that if your friends don’t support you they aren’t friends… but… are they?

The game of fundraising is about PERSONAL GROWTH. Asking for money is part of the game. Frankly, in the game of fundraising, it’s 90%.

Keep on. Your ego still needs to be humbled.

Ask away!

Our GID logo is actually the best logo I’ve ever made (with the help of our amazing team).

It’s perfect in all ways, focusing on the most important goals we have for our project:

– Load all things in a garage into GarageID

– Lower costs of things in your garage

– Ensure you have digital ownership over your precious data!

Every part of a project needs to be meticulously considered. It all matters!

Remember, when doing any type of funding, DOCUMENT ALL THE THINGS!

Your transparency and willingness to share is your unfair advantage.

The ups and downs of funding your project are real.

What I love about Kickstarter is it’s a SPEED DATING OF FUNDING.

You’ll get all of the highs and lows of raising money!!!

I actually think this is super cool. Having been through the month-year-long funding cycles of startups and venture capital… having a 60 day window to close is exhilarating… but also anxiety inducing!

Stay the course.

Build the wall.

WIN OR LEARN.

As always, please let your network know! We still need $20 from everyone! 🙂

• Day 3 and we’re learning a ton!
• Over 30 teams interested in us.
• Over 50 racers interested in us. First time conversation with drone racer!
• Met with 3.5M YouTube subscriber to talk about  how to get sim-racers into GarageID. See my personal twitter for pictures of that.

The real learning so far is how we can be broad in our approach, but also make it obvious – the value each of our users can get, whether they are a regular joe-user, event organizer, racer, vendor, retailer, or sponsor.

We’re servicing the ENTIRE automotive & motorsport world.

How do we reach them all?

How do we convince people to help us out and give us $20?

We must find a way.

I’m glad we’re trying!

Every day we’ll be posting videos about the functions, features, and users that need GarageID.

Today we’re focusing on RACERS!

Every racer needs money to race, whether you’re reacing a car, moto, atv, atx, boat, plane, or drone, if it’s in your garage and it costs you money… it needs to be in GarageID!

Let all of your racing network know to support us so we can build this app and bring it live to you!

THANK YOU LAUNCH TEAM!

WOW! – The response has been absolutely amazing!!!

Within 12 Hours…

• Over 20 new introductions to race teams who want to have a better Sponsorship Management system!
• Over 35 new racers/drivers who want a digital press kit to make it easy to advertise their racing machines and get in MONEY to race!
• 6 meetings set up with Venture Capitalists who want in… chill! We’re doing a crowdfund first! 😉
  
• And a couple of partnership talks… ooOoooOo. And in Web3 news already…

It’s clear we’re building something that is much needed.

Being needed is nice, but we need funding ourselves! Help us by sharing to your networks please!

Share Please?

Our success will be a function of YOUR help! Share any of our content from any of our socials (we’re keeping track for raffles):

• Tiktok – https://www.tiktok.com/@MyGarageID
  
• Instagram – http://instagram.com/YourGarageID
  
• Twitter – http://twitter.com/MyGarageID
  
• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@garageid
  
• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/garageid
  

If you know of any aspiring racer, please do let them know about our Kickstarter campaign! We want to add them to our global database of drivers to sponsor!

Launch Team Members?

Lots of inbound about helping us behind-the-scenes! We’ll be reaching out to all of our LAUNCH TEAM members and letting you know how you can get even deeper into our game. Remember, you gotta be a “Racer” level supporter to get our Telegram!

Deep breaths. The lights are out. Away we gooooo!!!~~~

Best,
GarageID LAUNCH TEAM

-=-=-=-

Watch the last 7 days of launch prep in this full thread tweet!

Find all the videos published (and hidden for future release) on our YouTube!