Platforms
Dissecting Amazon’s Platform Play
Question: Is Amazon a Pipe or a Platform or both? Short Answer: It’s complicated! Long answer follows… Pipes and Platforms are two contrasting business models, as we noted in the last post. However, the internet itself is a platform on which others (you, me, web developers, app makers, everyone) create value. By virtue of this [...]
How to become a billion dollar startup: AirBnB, YouTube and Platform Thinking
Note: This essay was first featured on TheNextWeb Technology startups are disruptive because they are driven by a desire to solve an unsolved problem in a unique way and create new value. Most large and established companies, in contrast, are driven by a desire to defeat competition and protect their market turf. Consider the problem [...]
How disruptive platforms get mainstream adoption
“What got you here won’t get you there.” Career advice that works equally well in the world of online platforms. The single factor that separates a successful platform from a failed one is the development of network effects. Most platform businesses fail because they never develop network effects. Social networks without users, content platforms without [...]
Reverse Network Effects: The Challenges of Scaling an Online Platform
Network effects are the most exciting aspect of Platform Thinking. Platform Thinking is an approach to business which looks at an online business as being composed of two elements: platform and value created on the platform. YouTube provides the platform, users create the value (videos) on the platform. KickStarter provides a platform but users [...]
The Three Building Blocks of Platforms
Note: This post first appeared on Harvard Business Review. I am delighted to have coauthored this with Mark Bonchek. The framework presented in this piece is foundational to my work on Platform Thinking and will be referenced in some of the subsequent posts. We typically think of companies competing over products — the proverbial “build [...]
Platform Thinking: How to get startup ideas
How does one find new startup ideas? Every business is built around solving a customer pain. Solving a customer pain creates value which in turn, if successfully harnessed, can be monetized. Platforms, in particular, connect demand and supply to solve customer pain on both sides. Platform Thinking and Startup Ideas One of the patterns for [...]
Platform Thinking: A brief guide to leveraging networks for business
This article first appeared on TheNextWeb Online networks are becoming increasingly important in the context of business today. In this era of social participation, the consumer is no longer a passive recipient of goods and services but is actively involved in creating value. Online platforms, that allow external participants to co-create value, are rewriting the [...]
A Platform Thinking Approach To Problem Solving
Business is about solving customer problems. It’s been claimed that business is primarily about beating the competition or about maximizing shareholder returns but if the successes (and failures) of the past decade are anything to go by, the primary goal of business is solving customer problems. If you think about the approach that businesses take [...]
Reverse network effects: Why scale may be the biggest threat facing today’s social networks
Note: This article first appeared as a Guest Column on The Next Web. Network effects are the holy grail for Internet startups looking for venture-scale returns. On a platform with network effects, the value to a user increases as more users use it. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Skype and many others benefit from this dynamic. [...]
How to get users to contribute on a creativity platform
Let’s loosely define creativity platforms as platforms that allow creators to express themselves, and possibly get an audience for their ‘creations’. YouTube, Dribbble, 500px, Instagram, Flickr… the list goes on. A platform without creators is a ghost town and there is little incentive for consumers to use it. Replicating the technology of YouTube is a [...]
Platform junkie, Singapore-based Early stage internet guy, Currently advisor to multiple platform startups.
This blog is about taking ventures from an idea to a business... and mitigating execution risk.
