Becoming Anything you want in the Platform Value Chain — with Adrien Nussenbaum

Podcast Notes

In this episode we are speaking Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and U.S. CEO of Mirakl, a global leader in online marketplace solutions. Since graduating from HEC in Paris in 2001, Adrien’s career has been focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and disruption. His background in corporate finance and management consulting has allowed him to support top Fortune 1000 companies in their strategic growth and transformation initiatives, including creating and leading FNAC’s marketplace from 2008 to 2011.

A serial digital entrepreneur, Adrien has always been driven by the desire to invent tomorrow’s economy: All Instant, a NY-based Instant Messaging platform sold in 2003, and SplitGames, an online video games marketplace, sold to FNAC in 2008. Along with co-founder Philippe Corrot, Adrien has built and led winning teams across the globe, created hundreds of jobs, and generated billions in sales for customers.

In our boundaryless conversation, we cover the platform revolution from many angles, from how companies tackle digitalisation to how platforms contribute to breaking boundaries in space and time in an age of full information transparency. We also explore the necessary mindshifts, for example transcending the idea of competition, and realising that as a platform you need to “earn the right” to serve an ecosystem, turning competition into partnership.

We also explore more generally what it means for brands to find a place in an API first, modularized economy, where suppliers and customers are aggregated and explain why the future of commerce may be in niches that require brands to meddle with the economy profoundly, leaving an opportunity space for incumbents that can transform as he cannot remotely shape everything directly from San Francisco.

Adrien talks about some exciting examples among Mirakl’s own clients, including members of the “platform pioneer club”, where peer learning, opportunities to “plug in” to the ecosystem, and creating a sense of belonging are key. As a platform player, you can essentially choose to be “anything in the value chain”, and that’s an exciting future outlook.

To find out more about Adrien’s work:

•  Website: https://www.mirakl.com/
•  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anussenbaum
•  Twitter: https://twitter.com/adriennus

Other references and mentions:

•  Mirakl Connect: https://www.mirakl.com/mirakl-connect/
•  Stop Covid-19 Marketplace: https://stopcovid19.fr/
•  Companies with platform businesses cases mentioned: AB InBev, Maison du Monde, 3M, Madewell
•  Aurora James’ 15% pledge: https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2020/12/21/aurora-james-is-helping-companies-invest-in-accountability-with-the-15-percent-pledge/?sh=2a56e3d78216

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast/

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on 11 December 2020.

Key Insights from the episode

2. The platform revolution has led to three critical boundaries being broken, which in turn has transformed the role of the customer: time-space, information, and connectivity. With customers having access to nearly perfect information and the ability to order from almost anywhere at any time, some companies have reacted defensively, developing platforms to protect their market position, whereas others have been more “offensive” in the sense of more proactively exploring the new practices and behaviors that the platform revolution and the “digital” have triggered. Looking ahead, an inflection point is likely approaching where companies can play any role in the value chain, providing “one of the most interesting, strategic change ahead of us”. It’s according to Adrien “as fundamental as when we discovered that the world was round and not flat”.

•  Listen to Adrien explaining the breaking of boundaries at min 10:55 and how companies can become anything in the value chain at min 47:14.

2. In a platform world, being on the “offense” means rethinking competition and instead think about partnering and complimenting your strength. Adrien shapes this in terms of “earning the right” to serve your ecosystem, by offering the best experience and partnership opportunities around. When launching Mirakl Connect, Adrien felt that they had done enough to earn that right and could say to companies joining the platform: “look at all the clients we have; they’re growing, they’re stable” and then work to connect technology partners with sellers and suppliers to create a flourishing ecosystem of platform-marketplace players.

•  Adrien talk about “Earning the right” to serve an ecosystem at min 15:17 and at min 29:20 about how Mirakl has earned the right to serve its own ecosystem.

3. The main danger that incumbents face is not coming from the outside, but the inside and “not changing the way they operate in terms of bringing agility in their technology developments, changing their business models, opening up to their ecosystem. It’s not leveraging the fact that they’ve earned the right to play”. Adrien believes that many incumbents have amazing assets to thrive in a platform world, like customer base, brand equity, respectability, and trust. Indeed, Mirakl’s customers are 80% incumbents and 20% digital natives.

•  Listen to Adrien’s thought on the danger incumbents face at min 34:40

? Boundaryless Conversations Podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organizing by leveraging on technology, network effects, and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous.