The networked platform business model is the underlying business model fueling today’s biggest and fastest-growing companies, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Uber , Alibaba etc. The revenue and net worth of founders of these companies have sky-rocketed, even within the current disruption due to the pandemic.

No matter what you do for a living or the sector of industry you work in, these businesses have altered entire industries-disrupting traditional companies, blurring boundaries of industries , altering competitive forces and creating sector-hybrids that have caused revolutionary changes in every aspect of business.

There are unique ways in which platforms have been able to upend markets, redraw business boundaries and alter careers:

1) Platform businesses create value using resources they do not own or have absolute control of, making scaling, fast and less cumbersome. For example, Facebook grossed a $70 B revenue in 2019, without creating a single content. When compared to traditional pipeline companies that have been around for a while, it is close to magic!

2) Platform businesses derive much of their values from the communities they serve. Community interaction for mutual benefit of participants drives value within these platform businesses. Data is used extensively to create a reinforcing feedback loop to curate and manage participants expectations and the value created.

3) These businesses have inverted the firm and upended markets. In traditional businesses, there is an inward focus of activities to create value for customers/users. The functions of marketing and sale are outward-directed and significant amount of resource deployed to enable customer acquisition and sale. These functions have been inverted by platform businesses. The focus is outward directed towards making a match between participants and curation to build and maintain trust. The functions of marketing and related activities are inward pulling, targeted, and reinforced by participants.