Platform Opportunity Exploration
Platform Strategy Design
Validation
Growth and Network Effects

Platform Design Toolkit

Evolving Service Design & Business modeling in the Age of Ecosystems.

The Platform Design Toolkit

An end to end design framework optimized for multi-sided ecosystems

A shared language for the age of platforms

Phase 1 and 2: Increase strategic awareness and explore opportunities

Platform Opportunity Exploration

Scan the Ecosystem and transform the Value Chain

Our Platform Opportunity Exploration Guide and the related canvases provide a structured approach to scanning an ecosystem and assessing the platform opportunity in there. It will help you evaluate how you can leverage your assets, overcome existing moats, and design ways to transform the value chain with an aggregation strategy by applying recurring Platform Plays.

THE CORE TOOLS for Opportunity Exploration

Arena Scan

A precious canvas to help you with the initial orientation needed to break down the Ecosystem’s complexity and prepare for the deep dive scanning.

Ecosystem Scan

A clear scanning canvas that helps you identify all the players, resources and key interactions that are already happening in the ecosystem, through the lenses of a potential Platform Strategy.

VRIO Canvas

Identify all the assets your organization can leverage on with a proven approach, understand which of them are really key and can be leveraged

Wardley Map & Platform Plays

Transfer all the information you captured on the Scan in a clear map of the value chain and apply the six key recurring transformations that all platformization strategies normally adopt to transform it

Phase 3: Design your Platform Experiences

Platform Strategy Design

Design scalable experiences with solid business models

The core of the Platform Design Toolkit methodology: a widely and well-tested step-by-step process that helps you go from contextualizing entities in the ecosystem and their relationships to designing the platform experience. Identify the two core engines of value: transactions and learning and consolidate everything into a design and a business model that you can prototype and validate.

THE CORE TOOLS for STRATEGY DESIGN

Ecosystem Canvas

Visualize the ecosystem, highlight the key relationships you’re looking to support and shape, and get ready to organise everythig with your platform strategy.

Entity-Role Portrait

Take a snapshot of all the entities’ context: their potential, their goals and the pressures they’re feeling and the gains they’re looking for, including the niche experiences that attract them. Comes with a guideline to craft interviews.

Motivations Matrix

With the Motivations Matrix and the Transactions Boards identify the “marketplace” side of your platform strategy, reflect on how to reduce transactions cost to enable the long tail of interactions that will grow the business reach.

Transactions Board

Learning Engine Canvas

Design the Learning Engine by envisioning how the services you can provide with you platform strategy can help all the entities in the Ecosystem to become the best version of themselves, through continuous learning and improvement!

Platform Experience Canvas

Design consistent, interactive experiences: integrate the key peer to peer transactions and the services you provide as a platform owner to ensure the experience resonates with the entities’ expectations and has a sustainable business model.

Phase 4: Validate your Assumptions

Ecosystem Discovery and Validation

Create experiments and interviews to avoid developing things your customers don't care about

A set of additional tools and guidance to help you with drafting interview scripts, designing experiments, and prioritizing features to be included in your MVPs. Learn how to integrate continuous feedback from your actual customers at every stage of the platform strategy process, pivot quickly to resonate with the ecosystem and save money spent on unnecessary features.

Phase 5: Launch, Grow and Evolve your platform strategy

Product Development & Growth

Get to liquidity, leverage flywheels and choose the right growth engines: create defensible strategies

Leverage our wide-ranging research, and frameworks on value proposition evolution, and defensibility. Think strategically and tactically about growth. Design to generate flywheels that make your business model defensible through network effects, learn how to reach liquidity, and solve the chicken-egg problem and identify the key metrics you need to track to ensure good unit economics, retention, and engagement.

THE CORE TOOLS for DRIVING GROWTH

Flywheel Sketching Canvas

Draft your flywheels by using our Flywheel Cards and learn how your platform strategy model will drive growth – and defensibility – across the product and the marketplace.

Liquidity Strategy Canvas

Use the liquidity canvas to address the most important questions on constraining your launch: choose which side to focus between supply and demand, and be sure you can address the chicken-egg problem.

Network Properties and NFX canvas

Find the best tactics for launch with the Network Properties and NFX canvas in combination with the Growth Tactics library, and envision what you can expect from your networks effects.

Try our Downloads or Work Online

Platform Design Toolkit - Strategy Design User Guide

The core of the Platform Design Toolkit methodology: a widely and well-tested step-by-step process that helps you go from contextualizing entities in the ecosystem and their relationships to designing the platform experience. Identify the two core engines o value: transactions and learning and consolidate everything into a design and a business model that you can prototype and validate.

Platform Opportunity Exploration Guide and Canvases

Platform Growth & Product Guide

Our Platform Growth & Product Guide provides key guidance to develop sound product strategies, consider pricing options and sort out the key strategic and tactical challenges with growth. Where to invest on, what to track and what to expect, – depending on the nature of the network and ecosystem you’re empowering – all is covered in this set of tools so that you can evolve your strategy and value propositiono as you grow.

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Become a facilitator

Take our Certification Bootcamps

In an increasingly interconnected age, full of pervasive technologies Platform Organizations are transforming the way we work and produce value.

The Platform Design Online Certification Bootcamp is a deep and extended format dedicated to those that are aiming to become Platform Design Toolkit expert facilitators and be part of an exclusive network of individuals that master the real potential of platform design, beyond buzzwords and false promises for really transformative impacts.