Oil Exploration - Ways you can make $$$
Bliss: Oil Industry Database
You just BODIED the database exercise. Sharing my qualitative thoughts here — look forward to hearing your reaction. I’m tired as a write this, so apologies as my thoughts/writing is not as crisp as could be — wanted to get stuff down on paper so we can keep charging forward!
In order to enhance efficiency and actionability as we move into the supply chain survey exercise, I feel that we should refine our focus.
In my view, we should…
- Codify high level takeaways as to what makes an attractive and economically viable product opportunity (application of additional constraints to facilitate inductive reasoning)
- Be laser focused (and explicit) in identifying where/how AI can change the paradigm (ie what elements of value creation can be disrupted by AI; how does AI change the game; we are in a trajectory shifting moment — let’s not lose sight of that)
- Identify who in each supply chain has/might have the highest willingness to pay (”I’d pay anything…” and really can afford to do so)
- Update our ‘Strategic Supply Chain Research Framework’ template to reflect the above + what we learned by analyzing oil (specifically, to include categories/evaluation criteria that reflect lessons from the oil industry)
@Bliss Perry can you please take a look at the below prior to our meeting and add any additional thoughts/categories/considerations that might be relevant? In particular, as creator of the ‘Strategic Supply Chain Research Framework’ rubric, can you please prepare to update the rubric per our findings/discussion?
I’m focused on toeing the right balance between creating clear targets/guardrails/aims before diving into the survey vs pushing forward and not over-structuring up front — I welcome your thought partnership on how strike that balance.
High level takeaways…
- Value to be created where there is volatility and fragility
- “Where there is volatility, there there is value in smoothing it; where there is fragility, there is value in reinforcing or rerouting it”
- “Entrepreneurs who can offer redundancy, emergency stockpiling, or risk management in those spaces can command premium pricing (’we’d pay anything if you could guarantee supply in a shortage…)”
- The best companies are those that position themselves at choke points or critical junctions
- Informational
- Financial
- Logistical
- Companies that manage/enable a market for a product often achieve better risk-adjusted returns than those making the actual product
- Manage flow
- Manage processing
- Manage distribution
- Categories of valuable data
- Supply/demand intelligence
- Inventory/storage intelligence
- Exogenous shock intelligence
- Natural
- Infrastructural
- Political
Specific ideas for inclusion in ‘Strategic Supply Chain Research Framework’ template…
- Choke points/critical junctions (identify them; logistical, financial, informational)
- Areas in which AI creates biggest change (identify them)
- Presence of volatility (Y/N, to what degree)
- Presence of fragility (Y/N, to what degree)
- Scale (Y/N, to what degree)
- Parties with high margin (identify them)
- Parties with high WTP (identify them, if different than the above)
Miscellaneous (and funny) thoughts…
- Designing a marketplace/exchange/digital platform would be absolutely bangin
- Can we design the digital version of an oil pipeline? A piece of digital infrastructure?
- Could we create a price index for some commodity where one doesn’t currently exist?
- Insurance is a valuable service; many different things to insure
- Financialization leads to non-market opportunities
- Trading houses make a ton of money
- Information providers have unbelivable economic model
- Can we create a proprietary data asset? will people pay?
- Can either trade on that info or sell to those with the highest WTP (ie traders)
- We should look at CoStar (CRE data) as comp
- Would be interesting to identify where brokerage exists in each supply chain and whether that broker can be disintermediated by technology
- Asset light businesses slap
- Can we create a digital intermediary? What would that look like besides a trading platform?