A colleague of mine knew I was going to be at Starbucks and at her request I picked up a beverage for her on my way out. I ordered my cappucino at the counter and looked up her drink order on my Treo. She wanted something called a "Venti Soy 9-Pump, No Water, No Foam Chai."
That's when I realized that Starbucks is a platform company. Starbucks has an API.
The best platform companies are those that don't look like platform companies because most people are users of their solutions. In Starbucks' case, their solutions are espresso, cappucino, and the other things on their menu. But platform companies have interfaces that allows others to build their own products on top of the platform. Go to Starbucks enough and you realize that you can order your cappucino wet or dry, with three different cow's milks or soy, with more or less shots of espresso, and on and on. The solutions get people in the door, but the platforms empower the users to build what it is they really want given the same set of tools. In turn, the customers become tied to the platform because it is where their solution works best.
I've been involved with platform companies who didn't know they needed solutions to sign up customers, and solutions companies who didn't understand how important a platform could be. None were as successful as they should have been because they never undertstood the other half of their business. Platform leverage works like this: Build targeted solutions that leverage the platform, gain enough customer traction to prove that great solutions can be built on the platform, make it easy for others to develop on the platform, watch your customers' happiness grow.
Next time I have to explain to someone what is important about a platform strategy, I'm taking them to Starbucks.
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