Pylon's long-term competitor isn't Zendesk.
It's Anthropic and OpenAI. Here's why...
All companies will go through these phases:
đ: đ§đ˛đŽđēđ đŽđąđŧđŊđ đđ. They get access to Claude/Codex and start building skills and using it for everyday work.
đŽ: đđ đ˛đ°đ đŋđ˛đŽđšđļđđ˛ đđ đŽđąđŧđŊđđļđŧđģ đļđ đ˛đ đŊđ˛đģđđļđđ˛. As an example, our support team was spending $1.5k/person/month on custom Claude skills we had developed to help them triage, investigate, etc.
đ¯: đđŧđēđŊđŽđģđļđ˛đ đļđēđŊđšđ˛đēđ˛đģđ đđŧđ¸đ˛đģ đ¯đđąđ´đ˛đđ. For example a support team might be given that $1.5k/person/month as a budget for Claude/Codex use. Across 10 people that's $180k/yr.
đ°: đŖđđšđŧđģ đŋđ˛đšđ˛đŽđđ˛đ đđ đđĩđŽđ đ°đŧđēđŊđ˛đđ˛đ đđļđđĩ đđģđđĩđŋđŧđŊđļđ° / đĸđŊđ˛đģđđ đŗđŧđŋ đđĩđŽđ đđŧđ¸đ˛đģ đ¯đđąđ´đ˛đ. Once the $180k token budget is there, Pylon will compete for it. $180k/yr is ~10x what that same support team might be paying for their ticketing system. The SaaS/Zendesk layer is tiny in comparison.
We're releasing this agentic customer support product on July 15th.
-- Notes --
- The token budget concept dramatically changes the market size for software companies that compete for it. Anthropic / OpenAI are paving the way for new use cases, but those implementations (currently via skills) will be unoptimized and expensive variants of products waiting to be developed.
- Purpose built software (e.g. Pylon for customer support) will be able to build those same use cases and have them be faster / cheaper / better.
- This idea applies broadly to B2B software companies.