“Work begins with the division of labor.”
❓ What You’ll Learn
- What’s the smiling curve?
- How to reduce market risk?
- What are embedding effects?
- Why are platforms extensible?
- How to extend and improve ecosystems?
- What’s the ‘attract and extract’ model?
💎 Why It Matters
This is glue for topics we’ve discussed including agencies, productized services, micro-SaaS, digital products, online courses, micro private equity and more.
🔍 Problem
Platforms can’t find or seize most opportunities to improve their ecosystems.
💡 Solution
We can build services, SaaS apps and digital products to extend and improve platforms.
🏁 Players
- ilo • Get Twitter analytics
- Typefully • Schedule tweets
- Shoutout • Embed social proof
- Tweet Hunter • Get inspiration for tweets
- Mailbrew • Get daily digests from Twitter
- The Twitter Thief • Learn to grow your audience
- Chime Social • Get Twitter analytics and schedule tweets
- Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience • Learn to grow your audience
- Testimonial • Embed social proof from videos, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube
Shopify
- PageFly • Build pages
- Nudgify • Share social proof
- Avenue • Update your theme
- Woo Popups • Collect emails
- Tidio • Add live chat to your store
- Referral Candy • Manage affiliates
- Digital Cake • Drive traffic to your store
- Shopify Power • Learn to build Shopify stores
- Build a Shopify Theme From Scratch • Learn to build Shopify themes
WordPress
- WPForms • Build forms
- SeedProd • Build pages
- Elementor • Build pages
- Maxwell • Update your theme
- OptinMonster • Boost conversions
- MemberPress • Add memberships
- WP Buffs • Get WordPress support
- MonsterInsights • Get WordPress analytics
- WordPress for Beginners • Learn to build responsive WordPress sites
- Ultimate WordPress Plugin Course • Learn to build WordPress plugins
🔮 Predictions
- Platforms will do more to attract partners. Shopify dropped developer fees to 0% for the first $1 million of revenue. Each year.
- Plugins will build across platforms to hedge risk. Chirr works with Twitter. Mailbrew works with multiple platforms. Finsweet uses Webflow. 8020 uses several no-code tools.
- Platforms will continue to clone integration partners. Twitter has scheduled tweets. Shopify now offers native abandoned cart recovery.
☁️ Opportunities
- Index into growing markets to reduce market risk. See fast-growing markets like Notion-to-Site, Sheet-to-Site and AI-Generated Copy apps.
- Build a productized service or agency around a platform.
- Gloat builds on Ghost
- AirDev builds on Bubble
- Bean Ninjas builds on Xero
- WP Buffs builds on WordPress
- HubSnacks builds on HubSpot
- NurtureKit builds on ConvertKit
- Lead Cookie builds on LinkedIn
- Build digital products for platforms.
- Traf built icons for iOS
- miniExtensions makes tools for Airtable
- Martin Ryden makes templates for Carrd
- Build a course to teach others how to use platforms.
- Chris Oliver teaches Rails with Go Rails
- Marie Poulin teaches Notion with Notion Mastery
- Nat Eliason teaches Roam with Effortless Output
- Build a SaaS around platforms.
- Build a Data as a Service company on a platform.
- JungleScout pulls data from Amazon
- Dune Analytics pulls data from Ethereum
- CamelCamelCamel pulls data from Amazon
- Explore Hacker News pulls data from Hacker News
🔑 Key Lessons
- Platforms can’t solve all of their own problems. Extensibility helps fill niches without complicating the core product.
- Today’s SaaS apps can’t exist in isolation. Users expect integrations. Hence the rise of Zapier, Integromat and Automate.io.
- Platforms attract and extract. Low take rates and high affiliate commissions attract partners. Value is extracted once network effects are strong.
😠 Haters
“You didn’t talk about how to build platforms.”
Most platforms are in winner-take-most markets. There are more opportunities to build on platforms than to build them. To learn more about building platforms, see micro-marketplaces and managed marketplaces.
🔗 Links
- The Smiling Curve • Applies the smiling curve concept to publishing.
- Why Decentralization Matters • Chris Dixon on the “attract and extract” model.
- The Network Effects Bible • On embedding effects and other moats.
📁 Related Reports
- Micro-SaaS • Most Micro-SaaS apps are built on one or more platforms.
- Agencies • Agencies tend to support platforms.
- Competitor Risk • On the differences between market risk and competitor risk.
- Online Courses • Includes courses aimed at platforms.
- Productized Services • Scalable services that support platforms.
- Data as a Service • Data companies built on platforms.
- Micro Private Equity • Some funds invest in ecosystems.
- Micro-Marketplaces • A playbook for unbundling platforms.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Stewart Townsend (Channel as a Service), Vishal Srivastava (Trainedge), Shashank Yadav (Omdena) and Yarty Kim (Bourne Fighter). We had a great time jamming on this report.
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📈 What else?
Trends #0066 — Ecosystems has more insights.
What you’ll get:
- 9 Twitter Players
- 9 Shopify Players
- 10 WordPress Players
- 9 Notion Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 9 Google Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 6 Airtable Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 3 Webflow Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 3 Heroku Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 3 Zoom Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 4 HubSpot Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 10 Slack Players (📈 Trends Pro Exclusive)
- 7 Predictions (133% More)
- 12 Opportunities (100% More)
- 6 Key Lessons (100% More)
- 11 Links (266% More)
- 12-minute audio episode with Ecosystem stories, insights and opportunities.
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) Which creator earned $280,000 from an ecosystem in a month?
- (📈 Pro) What’s permissionless integration?
- (📈 Pro) What’s the smirking curve?
- (📈 Pro) How to port ideas between platforms?
- (📈 Pro) What’s multi-tenanting?
- (📈 Pro) Which micro private equity firms are built on platforms?
- (📈 Pro) Which SaaS apps became platforms?
- (📈 Pro) What are aggregators?
- (📈 Pro) What are lead ads?
- (📈 Pro) What are examples of hardware ecosystems?
- (📈 Pro) What are complementary goods?
- and a lot more…
