Enablers

Some people have negative views towards enablers. They cause drug addictions, run-in with cops, and overall bad decisions. But what if the enabler was good? The enabler who goes against the stereotype and helps others get better, discover new potential, and don't mind getting their hands dirty in the process of doing so.

I love companies that are enablers; companies that allow others to build upon their platform to allow others to succeed. Good enablers are what I see as being crucial for lots of companies, and several companies have stepped up to the plate to do so. An example would be Plaid and what it does to allow fintech companies to connect to their customers' bank accounts. It seems so simple in what it does, but it's been a crucial part of making new financial technologies a seamless part of our lives.

In this context, I really like CrossBeam. According to their LinkedIn page:

Crossbeam is a collaborative intelligence platform that helps companies build more valuable partnerships. It serves as an escrow service for data, allowing companies to find overlapping customers and prospects, while keeping the rest of their data private and secure.

Crossbeam is the definition of an enabler. They enable companies to develop effective partnerships. Essentially, companies are able to test-out and realize their synergistic possibilities without oversharing their proprietary data.

The company seems to be more focused on the CRM side of the business, but an escrow-type partnership could be huge in other industries. The first one that came to mind was within healthcare. Yes, it's a highly regulated industry with concerns for privacy, but what if hospitals were able to effectively share medical records among its network of trusted partners to help them make better diagnosis? K Health built its symptom checker using medical records from Israel. Getting rid of silos has been a big trend in data. What if silos across companies are eliminated? Rather than silos, what if there was osmosis?