Many of today's most exciting startups have tried various forms before.

Suppose you develop a new technology that is valuable to some industry. The old way is to sell or license your technology to incumbents in the industry. The new approach is to build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses existing companies.

this kind"full stack"Prominent examples of methods include Tesla, Warby Parker, Uber, Harry's, Nest, Buzzfeed, and Netflix. Most of these companies have"partial stack"precedent, either failed or ended up as a relatively small business.

Problems with the partial stack approach include:

 · Bad product experience. Nest is great because of the deep Apple-like integration of software, hardware, design, services, etc., which they couldn't achieve by licensing companies like Honeywell.

 · Cultural resistance to new technologies. The media industry is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies, so Netflix is ​​(mostly) bypassing them.

 · unfavorable economic benefits. Your part of the stack can be quite valuable, but without control over the end customer, it's hard to get paid accordingly.

A full stack approach lets you bypass the incumbents in your industry, take full control of the customer experience, and capture a greater portion of the financial benefits you provide.

The challenge with a full stack approach is that you need to be good at many different things: software, hardware, design, consumer marketing, supply chain management, sales, partnerships, regulation, and more. The good news is that if you can do this, it will be very difficult for competitors to replicate so many interlocking parts.

My guess is that we are still at the beginning of the full stack movement. Many large industries remain relatively untouched by the information technology revolution. That may change now that startups have found the right approach.