In the mid-2010s, every web1 company became a web2 company. This time it’s different. Many web3 companies will become web2 companies, too.

Why will web3 companies dress like SaaS mutton?

If the current pace continues, web3 startup fundraising will fall by 73% in 2023. The absence of those dollars will flatten & shrink the already modest addressable market for web3 software & infrastructure.

Web3 software & infrastructure companies yearning to thrive will need to look beyond the web3 buyer base to new markets with larger willingness to spend. The cloud (web2 software & infrastructure) has captured 40%+ of a $1.5t annual spend on software.

Those billions are the future of web3 startup growth.

Web3 has created novel technologies that custody data, enable faster & more secure ways of moving money, guarantee provenance, & enable proofs of many things (identity, funds, insurance, presence to name a few).

But web3-to-web2 sales must be the future for companies to scale.

In that transition, web3 software & infrastructure companies will shed their language of wallets, blockchains, & tokens for terms most buyers understand : accounts, databases, & credits.

Web3 startups will sell software to web2 buyers & in the process become web2 SaaS businesses with unique & defensible architectural advantages & a different capital structure.