I’m Jesse Pujji and this is Business Breakdowns. Today we are doing a different kind of breakdown. We are covering an entire category, Amazon Aggregators. These are the companies that are buying up hundreds of Amazon’s third-party sellers. The concept of Amazon Aggregators is relatively new, tracing back to 2018 with the founding of Thrasio, but the ecosystem is already huge and growing. Most recent numbers peg it at around $300bn dollars in revenue and growing faster than Amazon itself. These aggregators have unique moats and high-quality entrepreneurs.   To help break down the marketplace and business of acquiring Amazon storefronts, I’m joined by Ali Hamed, a partner of CoVenture, who is also a popular guest on Invest Like the Best. In our conversation, we discuss the three superpowers Amazon sellers have, why there’s only $8bn in funding for a market doing $50bn in EBITDA, and we go into detail on how Amazon Aggregators are structured and operate. Please enjoy this unique breakdown on Amazon Aggregators.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.   -----   Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:03:23] - [First question] - What is an Amazon aggregator, and who sells through Amazon? [00:05:26] - The scale and size of the aggregator market in general [00:06:43] - The history of third-party sellers and the utility they offer Amazon [00:08:20] - When they started inviting third parties to join their network and their market share [00:09:47] - Amazon’s 40% take-rate and overview of the economic structure [00:10:24] - How many individual storefronts exist and what they look like  [00:13:19] - Who is starting Amazon stores and an overview of a seller writ large [00:14:43] - The initial insight that led to incorporating third-party aggregators [00:21:17] - How many aggregators exist in the space today [00:24:41] - Why vertical integration isn’t such a primary focus for aggregators [00:26:53] - Ways aggregators find businesses and how they tend to acquire them [00:31:29] - What the top 10 aggregators look like and their acquisition frequency [00:32:25] - The common value add aggregators deliver post-acquisition [00:36:47] - Deal pipelines and other sales and marketing functions [00:40:22] - Interesting things in the space given how unique of a marketplace it is [00:43:57] - New innovations and secondary ecosystems emerging as a result of aggregators [00:45:13] - How an aggregator should think about Amazon and risks to their business [00:48:29] - Why Amazon won’t use their data and customer ownership to own the market [00:50:10] - Macro and system risks that would threaten the success of this business model [00:52:35] - What keeps Amazon up at night and potential worries about aggregators [00:53:54] - Reasons why they would pass on an acquisition opportunity [00:55:32] - Contributing factors to explosive growth that exceeded expectations [00:58:10] - Biggest takeaways for builders and investors from 3rd party aggregators [01:01:04] - Where to learn more about Amazon’s third-party aggregators

I’m Jesse Pujji and today we’re breaking down MongoDB. The MongoDB story traces back to 2007 when the founding team was running DoubleClick, a large adtech business now owned by Google. They could not find an existing database software with the agility and scalability that the internet requires. Today, MongoDB has over 25,000 customers across 100 countries.    To help break down Mongo, I'm joined by Ro Nagpal, an investor at Holocene Advisors. Listeners will recognize Ro from our breakdown of Twilio earlier this year. During our conversation, we get a 101 on database software, talk through Mongo’s creative approach to R&D, learn about how database product advantages compound, and look at what protects Mongo from larger players like Microsoft and Amazon. Please enjoy this business breakdown of MongoDB.    For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.   -----   Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:03:51] - [First question] - What MongoDB is, what they do, and their scale today [00:05:03] - The functions of a database and why they’re important [00:07:37] - The unmet market need that led to founding MongoDB and the history of the space leading up to today [00:11:13] - What big data means and how it applies to MongoDB [00:12:42] - Things that would lead customers of Oracle to leave them for MongoDB [00:13:42] - The technology stack behind a company like weather.com [00:14:52] - Types of companies and services that couldn’t exist without MongoDB [00:16:40] - State of the database marketplace today and where they fit into it [00:17:51] - How big the new market of big data is and current competitors [00:19:22] - What makes MongoDB so distinct and why they’re winning [00:21:34] - The most important metrics and numbers for the business [00:23:28] - Gross margins and why they spend so much on sales and marketing [00:24:55] - How investors can justify a company spending so much on marketing [00:26:19] - The P&L and unit economics of the business [00:26:47] - How a customer grows after they’ve been acquired [00:27:21] - Clever ways that MongoDB spends and uses their resources [00:29:26] - Different types of open source models and how they use it to their advantage [00:31:22] - One thing MongoDB does exceptionally well and something they could improve [00:34:19] - What MongoDB has managed to get so right compared to their competitors [00:36:04] - Their unique go-to-market strategy and why it worked [00:37:15] - The things that would have to go right for MongoDB to compound over a decade [00:39:00] - Market factors that may impact their future growth and potential M&A opportunities [00:40:27] - Biggest risks that may affect MongoDB’s growth trajectory over the next few years [00:41:01] - What allows them to exist in a world dominated by Google and Microsoft [00:42:34] - Lessons for builders and investors when studying MongoDB’s story [00:44:17] - Why changing their CEO was necessary and helped the company recover and thrive