I'm mainly aware of this distinction because of a unique problem with AI startups. Technically an AI platform and an AI product company (we call this vertical

I'm mainly aware of this distinction because of a unique problem with AI startups. Technically an AI platform and an AI product company (we call this vertical specific) are both "AI startups". There is a larger trend in the industry that typically these "platform" companies are a solution looking for a problem (this is often the case). These companies are typically SAAS and get acquired. What you see more of now a days are AI "product" companies focused on a particular problem like say: sales ops. The "platform" people seem to have moved on to "chat bots" now. It seems like the same trend will play out though: "chat bots" for specific verticals. That being said: As a founder of a startup that somewhat bucked this trend (focusing on an oracle type business model in various markets rather than SAAS and selling to developers) we focus mainly on a few key areas to make money. The way we do this is "core technology" bundled with some sort of an "app", in our case being fraud detection solutions with a "land and expand" type approach. The thesis is we can see some of the benefits of being a tech-first startup (lock in and broad usage) but keep focused like a product company would be.