{
  "_meta": {
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    "generated_at": "2026-05-15T00:18:21.945Z",
    "count": 12,
    "parent": "https://mtb.xyz/posts.json",
    "author": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Matt Brown",
      "url": "https://mtb.xyz/",
      "jobTitle": "Investor",
      "worksFor": "Matrix Partners",
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        "https://notes.mtb.xyz",
        "https://www.matrix.vc/people/matt-brown"
      ]
    },
    "note": "Matt-curated canonical posts. Surfaced on the home page in this order. Use these for \"best of\" or representative-views queries."
  },
  "posts": [
    {
      "title": "Your data model is your destiny",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/your-data-model-is-your-destiny",
      "year": "2025",
      "tags": [
        "frameworks",
        "vertical-software"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 1,
      "description": "When code is commoditized, your data model is the last durable moat",
      "summary": "As code becomes cheap and software increasingly commoditized, the durable competitive moat for vertical software shifts from feature differentiation to the structure and depth of the underlying data model. Data-model design decisions compound over years and become harder to copy than UI or workflow.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/your-data-model-is-your-destiny.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "B2B payments aren't payments, they're workflows",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/b2b-payments-workflows",
      "year": "2023",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 2,
      "description": "The real money in B2B payments is in the workflow, not the transaction",
      "summary": "B2B payments are workflow problems, not transaction-routing problems. The value capture (and the reason vertical software wins) lives in the approval, reconciliation, and AP/AR workflows surrounding a transaction, not in the rails themselves.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/b2b-payments-workflows.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Interchange in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/interchange-in-1000-words",
      "year": "2023",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 3,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "How card fees work, who keeps what, and why margins keep compressing",
      "summary": "A high-level walkthrough of card-payment economics: who the issuer, acquirer, and scheme are, how interchange and acquirer markup split the gross fee, and how software-led acquiring (payfacs, BaaS) and issuing fit into the modern payment stack. Concludes that interchange revenue alone is structurally fragile; smart fintechs use it as a foundation for higher-margin business models, not as the destination.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/interchange-in-1000-words.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Payfac in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/payfac-1000-words",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 4,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "What payfacs actually do, how they make money, and when to build one",
      "summary": "A short explainer of the payment-facilitator model: what a payfac is, how it differs from a traditional merchant-acquirer setup, the economics of payfac aggregation, and the decision framework for when a vertical software company should build its own payfac vs partner with one.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/payfac-1000-words.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "The future of interchange",
      "url": "https://sacra.com/research/the-future-of-interchange/",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 5,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "Where payment revenue moves when interchange runs out of room",
      "summary": "An analysis of where payment revenue concentrates as interchange continues its secular decline. Durable payment economics increasingly come from non-interchange sources like risk, lending, FX, and embedded finance, and the shift reshapes what fintech and vertical software builders should optimize for.",
      "platform": "sacra.com",
      "is_external": true
    },
    {
      "title": "Stablecoins in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/stablecoins-1000-words",
      "year": "2025",
      "tags": [
        "fintech",
        "payments"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 6,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "What stablecoins are, how they work, and why they matter for payments",
      "summary": "A short explainer of stablecoins from a payments perspective: what they actually are technically, how they hold their peg, the major issuers and reserve models, and where they realistically slot into payment rails, particularly cross-border and B2B.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/stablecoins-1000-words.md"
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    {
      "title": "Why VC and software have PE envy",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/vc-pe-envy",
      "year": "2025",
      "tags": [
        "investing",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "investing",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 7,
      "description": "Three hybrid models blurring the line between VC and PE",
      "summary": "VC and software investors are increasingly adopting playbooks from private equity, including hold-and-build strategies, multi-fund continuity vehicles, and operating-driven value creation. The piece walks through three hybrid models emerging at the VC/PE seam and what each means for venture economics.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/vc-pe-envy.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Invisible asymptotes in vertical software",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/invisible-asymptotes-vertical-software",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 8,
      "description": "Every generation of vertical software must solve harder problems to win",
      "summary": "Each successive generation of vertical software has to clear a higher bar to find a defensible wedge. Earlier wins came from digitization and basic workflow. Today's vertical winners must solve harder problems like embedded finance, AI-native workflows, and integrated data layers to break through.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/invisible-asymptotes-vertical-software.md"
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    {
      "title": "Vertical AI: beware what you wrap",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/vertical-ai-beware-what-you-wrap",
      "year": "2025",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "ai",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "ai",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 9,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "AI commoditizes fast. The moat is the system of record, not the model",
      "summary": "A cautionary frame for vertical AI products that wrap a model as their core value. The model layer commoditizes quickly while durable advantage stays at the system-of-record layer, namely the proprietary data, workflows, and integrations that AI can only augment, not replace.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/vertical-ai-beware-what-you-wrap.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Vertical software already won the context graph",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/context-graph-vertical-software",
      "year": "2026",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "ai",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "isNew": true,
      "isPopular": true,
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 10,
      "description": "Vertical software already owns the most valuable context graphs",
      "summary": "An argument that the AI-era \"context graph\" (the relationships between customer, transaction, and operational data that make an AI agent actually useful) is something vertical software has been compounding for a decade. Frames vertical SaaS as the incumbent winner of a battle horizontal AI builders are only now realizing they need to fight.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/context-graph-vertical-software.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dark software",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/dark-software",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 11,
      "description": "When software is cheap and distribution is expensive, bundle, don't build",
      "summary": "As building software becomes cheap, distribution becomes the binding constraint. The right strategy in many vertical markets isn't to build a new product but to bundle existing capabilities behind an established distribution channel. \"Dark software\" wins on access, not innovation.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/dark-software.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Undifferentiated heavy lifting",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/undifferentiated-heavy-lifting-in",
      "year": "2022",
      "tags": [
        "frameworks",
        "fintech",
        "vertical-software"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "fintech",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 12,
      "description": "Fintech infra rarely differentiates, so stop building it",
      "summary": "Infrastructure capabilities like KYC, ledgering, ACH plumbing, and core compliance rarely differentiate a customer-facing fintech product. The right move is to buy or partner for that layer and reinvest engineering effort in the experience, distribution, or risk model that actually compounds.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/undifferentiated-heavy-lifting-in.md"
    }
  ]
}