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

The first platform design method ever codified, released in 2013, optimized to help you build multi-sided, transformative platform strategies to empower ecosystems in creating shared value: it’s open-source, adopted worldwide by global Fortune 500 leaders, leading institutions, startups, and scaleups.
The Platform Design Toolkit covers all stages, from exploration to design, to validation and growth.

 

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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Platform Opportunity Exploration Guide and Canvases

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.

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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.

The Platform Design Toolkit is licensed in CC-BY-SA

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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.

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