Although Ethereum is positioned as the infrastructure of the blockchain industry, it should not be detached from C-end users.
This discussion by Solv founder Meng Yan has inspired me greatly.
Ethereum is actually also a "business," but in a very special organizational form, being more decentralized and community-driven, which allows innovation to often occur spontaneously from the bottom up.
However, apart from Bitcoin, the true ownerless blockchain, all other public chains and Web3 projects require a person or team to drive their development, relying on the existence of a soul figure.
Therefore, we can generalize such organizations as "businesses" for analysis.
As a frontline practitioner in a web startup, I not only focus on product development every day but also look up to see the direction, considering the positioning and trajectory of products and business.
Here, I share some thoughts on different types of services for B-end and C-end.
01 Why is the C-end market important?
Compared to the B-end market (Business), the importance of the C-end market (Customer) is mainly reflected in three aspects:
- Market Size: The scale of the C-end market is usually much larger than that of the B-end market. Since the number of consumers far exceeds the number of businesses, providing services to the C-end means reaching a broader user base, thus having greater market potential.
- Innovation Drive: The C-end market is often the source of innovation. Consumer demand changes rapidly, and consumer feedback is also quick, so product iterations in the C-end market happen very fast, making it easier for innovative products to emerge.
- Economic Effects: The C-end market has network effects and scale effects. The growth of the user base can enhance the value of services (such as social networks), while scale effects can reduce costs and increase profits.
02 Why must B-end market companies venture into the C-end market?
Companies providing B-end services have the advantage of stable cash flow, and due to the complexity and professionalism of the services, there are also strong competitive barriers.
However, if they want to further expand their business and gain greater development space, they should consider developing C-end applications.
More critically, a long-term focus on B-end services has significant drawbacks: it can easily overlook the needs of end users and become sluggish in responding to market changes.
Over time, they can easily be eliminated by market changes caused by technological innovations. Especially in fields with rapid technological changes, companies providing B-end services are in a very dangerous position.
Therefore, while focusing on B-end business, companies also need to consider how to balance development through C-end business to maintain their dynamism and market competitiveness.
Providing services to C-end users is not only an opportunity to increase market share and revenue but also an important way to maintain corporate vitality, innovation capability, and market relevance.
Moreover, companies originally focused on the C-end may sometimes consider providing B-end services, as B-end services can offer more stable cash flow and higher single-client value, but the challenge lies in the high complexity and professionalism of the services.
03 How can a company successfully transform?
First, let's look at a typical failure case: Yahoo.
Yahoo was once a consumer-facing internet giant, providing services like search and portals. However, after failing in the competition with Google and others in the consumer search market, Yahoo attempted multiple transformations, including shifting to enterprise services.
Enterprise clients typically need to see professionalism, stability, and long-term technical support, but Yahoo had already collapsed in the C-end market, making it difficult to establish sufficient market trust in these areas.
As a result, these attempts did not reverse its decline, and ultimately, most of Yahoo's business was acquired by Verizon.
When a company's own C-end business faces problems, it becomes very difficult to transition to B-end services; the transformation will only accelerate its collapse.
Now, let's look at a typical success case: Amazon.
Amazon initially started as a B2C e-commerce platform, but with the success of AWS (Amazon Web Services), it became an important player in the cloud computing B-end market.
Amazon's success in the B-end service market is crucially linked to its prior success in the C-end consumer market, as in serving C-end customers, Amazon accumulated a wealth of technical capabilities, especially in handling large-scale data, optimizing logistics, and providing reliable online services.
Amazon's success in the C-end market helped it establish trust in the B-end market, with enterprise clients believing that Amazon could provide stable and reliable services.
As technology matured and market demand for cloud computing grew, Amazon commercialized its services and promoted them to other players in the industry.
Whether a company transitions from B-end to C-end or from C-end to B-end, the premise is that it has already achieved success in its original business area, which increases the probability of gaining new business growth in a new field during the transformation.
04 Conclusion
Companies originally targeting C-end users, once they occupy a sufficient market share, can consider commercializing their underlying technical capabilities and empowering other players in the industry.
However, they must never directly abandon their C-end business, as once they detach from the C-end market, they are likely to overlook user needs and market trends, ultimately losing competitiveness.
On the other hand, companies that originally operated in the B-end market, after solidifying their foundation and achieving stable cash flow, can consider expanding into the C-end market, directly building an end-to-end product based on their technology. This allows them to directly validate their technology in the market and iterate on it.
More critically, even if they fail, they still have their B-end business to fall back on.
Therefore, regardless of the type of transformation, it proves the importance of the C-end market.
Only by creating products aimed at users can a true value closed loop of technology - product - commercialization be formed.
Wherever the users are, the market is there, and ultimately, the funds will also be there.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
