Platform Scale summary

Platforms revolve around interaction, so it’s crucial that the platform is simple enough for the users to instinctively understand and use. So how can we understand the simplicity that lies behind a complex platform?

If you look at the workings of popular platforms and their massive ecosystems, you can see the few small, simple core ideas that form the foundation of their services. Take WhatsApp, for example, whose entire platform is based on sending SMS messages for free. Or consider Uber, an app that allows you to call a taxi with your smartphone.

Creating a platform is just like building something with Legos: you start with a large base on top of which you add the bricks and blocks. Design starts with an understanding of these very elements: the core value units of the platform.

The core value units are the services or items that the platform offers. Take Etsy, an e-commerce website where subscribers can sell their homemade items. The homemade creations are Etsy’s core value units.

Can you remember how you first used the internet? Chances are you were only using Google to look up content that someone else had created – but now things have changed.

In fact, before the emergence of platforms, internet communities obeyed the 90–9–1 rule: 90 percent of subscribers consumed content, nine percent curated and only one percent created. But today, successful platforms have pushed the trend toward a much higher percentage of producers – which in turn has become the key to platform success.

Imagine you put up an ad on eBay, and no one responds, or that you upload a video to YouTube without getting a single view. This is what’s called an interaction failure.

Sometimes the content – for example, the video or the ad – is just plain bad, but it can also mean that the platform has failed to match supply and demand. And when that happens, users lose interest, because the platform is not helping them connect.

When a platform first launches, it’s empty. Being empty, it can’t attract users. And without users, it remains empty!

Luckily there are several ways to avoid the vicious circle of an empty platform.

Have you ever spent hours looking at the latest cute cat videos that are all over your social media? What you’ve experienced is virality, and it’s a crucial element in creating a successful platform.

Many people hunt for the mysterious source of virality, but you can build it into a platform by using an engine strategy. This contrasts with another way of growing a start-up: using bumps.

When a platform starts growing exponentially, there’s always a lot of excitement. But it may reach a stage where growth backfires and turns into a threat.

Why?