Book Image

Effective Platform Product Management

By : Tabassum Memon
Book Image

Effective Platform Product Management

By: Tabassum Memon

Overview of this book

Scaling a platform is a lot different than scaling a product. This is why product managers developing or transitioning to a platform model are often facing completely new challenges – both technical and strategic. But if you want to build the next Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, or a completely new type of platform, then you need to adopt a platform-first approach to change how you invent, develop, and market solutions. This is where Effective Product Platform Management comes in. This book addresses product management as a critical pillar of platform development. It'll help you understand the difference between traditional and modern product management for platforms and even decide whether the platform business model is the way to go for you. As you progress, you’ll be able to build the right platform strategy, define the MVP, and focus on ongoing backlog prioritization for successful platforms. This book will also walk you through the practical steps and guidelines that can ease your organization’s transition from linear products to platforms. By the end of this platform product management book, you’ll have learned the essential aspects of product management for building successful and scalable platforms. You’ll also have a clear understanding of the next steps you need to take to perfect and execute your new platform strategy – and take on the world.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: Building the Right Strategy for the Platform Business Model
6
Section 2: Building the Platform
10
Section 3: Measuring the Performance of the Platform

Validating the viability of the platform model

Transitioning from linear products to platforms is essential, but the nature of each business is different. Every business has its own characteristics and components that may or may not make the platform model viable. It is essential to understand how to validate your business's transformation from a linear model to a platform model. Please remember, this validation is for existing linear businesses willing to transition. A new business validating the viability of the platform was covered in Chapter 3, Research and Validation. Let's look at some of the factors that can help us validate the viability of this transition:

  • Which side of the platform do you fall on?: Most linear businesses are either producers or curators, as seen in the department store example earlier. Producers are manufacturers and suppliers of goods and services who sometimes sell directly to consumers, sometimes go via a curator, or sometimes both. For...