Position yourself in the middle of the meta sandwich

Years ago, when we were building Sirena, we got into the WhatsApp Business API early — 800 lines, in a market still oriented to giant accounts. In a meeting at Meta’s offices, an executive told me something that’s shaped how I look at every market since.

“The market is a sandwich,” he said. “Depending on how big you are, you’re relevant to a different team here.”

               ╭───────────────────────────────────╮
              ╱   TOP BREAD                          ╲      → Fortune 100/500
             │    hyperscaler enterprise sales        │         OpenAI / Anthropic
              ╲                                      ╱         direct accounts
               ╰───────────────────────────────────╯

        ░░░░░░  lettuce  ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
        ▓▓▓▓▓▓  tomato   ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓     ┐
        ──────  cheese   ──────────────────────────     │   ←── BUILD
        ▒▒▒▒▒▒  ham      ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒     │       HERE
        ░░░░░░  mayo     ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░     ┘

               ╭───────────────────────────────────╮
              ╱   BOTTOM BREAD                       ╲      → consumer / micro-SMB
             │    mass-market self-serve              │         ChatGPT, Gemini,
              ╲                                      ╱         WhatsApp Business
               ╰───────────────────────────────────╯

The two pieces of bread are the top and the bottom. The bottom bread is consumers and very small businesses — millions of them, low ARPU, high volume. The top bread is the Fortune 100/500 — a few hundred giant accounts, each worth tens of millions in contract value. The middle of the sandwich — ham, cheese, tomato — is everyone else.

Big tech companies build product for the two pieces of bread. They have to. Bottom bread is solved with simple, mass-market apps. Top bread is solved with custom enterprise teams that fly to São Paulo to close one bank. WhatsApp had this exactly: WhatsApp Business app for individuals, WhatsApp Cloud API for the giants. Two teams reaching for each other. Eventually they squeeze the middle.

OpenAI is doing the same now. ChatGPT for everyone (bottom bread). Direct enterprise contracts with the largest companies in the world (top bread). They told us at an event with their head of revenue: above a certain ACV, they take it directly. Below, they go through partners. Big bread, small bread, and the middle is open.

The middle is where founders live. Companies with 50, 500, 5,000 employees that aren’t big enough to get the OpenAI account team’s attention, and aren’t small enough to use ChatGPT off the shelf. There are a lot of them. Their pain is real. Big tech isn’t reaching them yet, and won’t for a few years.

Three corollaries:

1. Don’t build for the very top of the bread. If your customer talks directly to OpenAI or Anthropic, you’ll get squeezed. They have the scale; you don’t.

2. Be careful at the very bottom. Consumer AI is gorgeous, but big players are pouring billions into it. Go up a notch — instead of micro-restaurants, mid-size restaurant chains. Instead of micro-influencers, the next tier up.

3. The “crust” exists. Tomás from Latitud calls it that — there are huge enterprises in LatAm being badly served by OpenAI and Anthropic right now, because those teams literally can’t keep up with global demand. There’s an opportunity in the chaos.

When the bread teams eventually squeeze toward the middle, the next disruption (robotics, something else) will force them to retreat to the bread again. By then you’ve built something that survives the squeeze.

Pick the middle. Pick a vertical. Pick the ham.

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