Before a digital platform becomes reality and a first prototype is built, the business model has to come first.
That’s exactly what Andreas Geissrigler, Hannes Baptist, and I worked on this week—guided by the Platform Navigator, an excellent tool developed at the University of St. Gallen by Felix Wortmann, Sven Jung, Wolfgang Bronner, and Oliver Gassmann (2022).
The Platform Navigator is designed to support the creation and rollout of platform business models, which is precisely our goal.
It forces you to answer the fundamentals:
- Where are the real opportunities?
- How will we create and capture value?
- How will we grow and govern the platform?
After four focused hours, we had a coherent picture and a clear path to the next steps. We’re very happy with the result.
Based on this experience, I highly recommend the 88 Patterns for designing and implementing platform business models.