Platform Plays

back with a “5 minute Friday” audio edition

key concepts I cover in this snippet:

1. the business purpose of any platform play (reach)

2. the 3 platform ility’s (scalability, extensibility, composability)

3. how each ility enables a different type of reach (volume, workflow, market)

4. what the viability of each play depends on (automation, partners, innovation)

5. platform terminology and the ingredients of each ility play

I’d love to hear from listeners about their experiences with platform plays - please chime in via comments👇. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing.

update:

I elaborated on this idea in a Twitter thread

ibrahim @ibscribe

the only good reason for a business to attempt to be a platform is to 10x “reach” a 🧵 on the 3 types of platform plays

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further reading / references

• Steve Yegge’s Google / Amazon Platforms Rant is a great read on the mindset required for a successful platform play

• the terms product, platform, marketplace, and ecosystem tend to be conflated, so I recommend reading Platform vs Linear Business Models and Platform Types

• the CEO of Applico has some good writing and a Quora post that provides examples of different platform plays (tl;dr exchange vs builder platforms)

• if you want to apply Platform Plays thinking to concrete examples, read through Skip Step SaaS and consider each of those products on these 3 ility axes

• my previous Product Tree post has a good example of the difference between a feature, a solution, and a platform and how a company can operate at all altitudes

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childish drawing / interpretation