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Dan Hockenmaier

Head of Strategy and Analytics at Faire

Dan Hockenmaier is the Chief Strategy Officer at Faire, a wholesale marketplace that empowers retailers to discover and buy from thousands of brands risk-free.12 He was promoted to this position from his previous role as Head of Strategy and Analytics.3

Hockenmaier has been with Faire since 2017, initially serving as an advisor before joining full-time in 2021.12 He brings over 15 years of experience to his role, including:

  • Consultant at Boston Consulting Group
  • Director of Growth at Thumbtack
  • Founder of Basis One, which was acquired by Faire in 202112

At Faire, Hockenmaier has been instrumental in guiding major strategic decisions and led the company's first expansion strategy.13 He currently leads a team of 50+ analysts, focusing on empowering every team to make better decisions for customers and the business.12

Hockenmaier is known for his expertise in marketplace businesses and has been key in identifying growth levers for Faire.13 He's also a partner at Reforge, where he helps build professional development programs, and has co-created their monetization track.2

Highlights

Today · twitter

What is keeping big companies from getting even bigger?

Mostly coordination costs. At some point, they just have too many people, too much process. They become slow and dumb.

This is when they start failing to make the next jump into a new product or market. It's when they start hiring consultants because it’s easier to just over-pay than wade through the internal molasses.

AI is going to blow that up, because it means companies need many fewer people per unit of output. Headcount drops, complexity drops, coordination costs plummet.

Value per employee goes up, so companies can pay their best people more. It will take longer before a company’s top people start jumping ship for somewhere with less bureaucracy and more upside.

This is one reason to believe that instead of AI creating lots of small software companies with small-TAM products, it will instead create the biggest companies we've ever seen.

Yesterday · twitter

This is a window into the future of software companies:

  • massively multi-vertical products operating on shared infra and data model

  • agents running over the top to abstract away complexity for users that don't want it, or direct those who do to a deeper workflow

  • ultimately, the number of SaaS vendors a given enterprise works with falling from ~350 today to many fewer in the future

Related Questions

What are some key strategic decisions Dan Hockenmaier has made at Faire?
How did Dan Hockenmaier's role evolve from advisor to Chief Strategy Officer?
What was the impact of Dan Hockenmaier's team on Faire's growth?
Can you share more about Dan Hockenmaier's experience at Boston Consulting Group and Thumbtack?
What unique strategies did Dan Hockenmaier bring from Basis One to Faire?
Dan Hockenmaier
Dan Hockenmaier, photo 1
Dan Hockenmaier, photo 2
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Location

San Francisco, California, United States