Tim Metz

Blinkist and the Rise of Service as a Software

Post #13, 2014.11.12 | An Idiot’s Guide to the Future

Have a favourite app you discovered recently? Mine is Blinkist, hands down. A little army of people disguised as an app, hard at work reading and summarising every non-fiction book known to man for me. I’ve already “read” 50 non-fiction books in October alone.

Of course one man’s fortune is another’s folly (authors and publishers in this case). Most non-fiction books are lots of fluff with only a bit of substance; the core idea can usually be explained in a few pages. But since authors aim to sell books and make a name for themselves, their ideas always seem to stretch out to the exact length of a book*.

This is the weak spot Blinkist has identified and taken firmly in its crosshairs. I pay them a small subscription fee per month, Blinkist then pays its people to professionally turn tons of non-fiction works into a ten chapter summary. With each chapter being about 4 — 7 paragraphs, the essence of most books is easily distilled into a 15 minute read.

Welcome to the world of the SaaS business model: Software as a Service. If you’re paying for Spotify, iCloud, Dropbox or any other piece of software on a monthly subscription basis, you’re already part of the SaaS revolution. Instead of buying a piece of software for a one time fee, the SaaS-model allows developers to receive a continuous stream of subscription revenue, while you, the customer, should benefit from a product which continuously is being improved.

Blinkist takes this one step further and is part of what I’d dub the “Service as a Software” model (SaaS 2.0). They’ve taken a people service (paying someone to read and summarise books for you) and morphed it into a scalable software product, charged at a monthly subscription fee.

They’re not alone. Headspace is another great example of an app which has packaged a service (meditation teaching) into a subscription-based product. Through pre-recorded audio and video sessions, you are guided in your meditation journey by a professional teacher. Based on your subscription fee, Headspace keeps expanding its service with new content “packs”.

It’s not likely to stop with book summaries and meditation. Riding on the rise of wearables, artificial intelligence and other technological developments, opportunities to turn services into a subscription-based (software) product are waiting for the taking. Be on the lookout for services previously only available to the wealthy (e.g. paying someone to summarise books for you or private meditation lessons), which can be repackaged into a (semi-)personalised app experience at a more affordable rate.

My bet for 2015? Personal trainers are clear game for a Service as a Software app. With all the health trackers currently available and Apple moving into the space with their Watch, there is a great opportunity to provide semi-personalised gym and workout advice, based on all the health data you’re generating but never have time to properly analyse yourself**.

I’m sure they’re not the only ones though: executive coaches, golf trainers and butlers beware! The Service as a Software revolution is only just beginning and it might be coming for you next.

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** Blinkist says they already have agreements in place with some publishers to share part of their subscription fees with them. This is of course a good thing, as I’m not in favour of blatantly stealing and profiting from someone else’s work. I do think there are many overhyped, bullshit non-fiction books out there though, simply rehashing and repackaging what someone else has long ago written before. Those deserve the Blinkist shrinking treatment.*

*** Just to be clear: this is not the same as fitness apps which are currently available. They only allow you to either put together a personal plan yourself and/or track your data. There are none (I know of), which employ trainers and/or physicians “behind the scenes” of the app, to analyse your data and provide personalised plans and recommendations based on that data on a weekly or monthly basis.*

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