Very often teams are using multiple frameworks and tools like Design Thinking or the original Business Model Canvas for ideation. But those tools are lacking the capabilities to transfer and support a venture project into the scale-up phase. This leads to inconsistencies and very often misunderstandings. The PIK is designed to support all life stages of a platform venture – from exploration to scale – making it the most comprehensive toolset available.

For each phase the Platform Innovation Kit provides relevant tools:

• Core Tools (Canvases)
• Extended Core Tools (Canvases + Guides)
• Advanced Tools (Full processes, Extra Canvases & Tools, Online Guide)

The first phase is all about strategic moves. If you want to disrupt markets you need first to understand the future ecosystem (market) and what will shape this ecosystem now and in the future. 

If you are an incumbent company, you need to understand those ecosystems as well – then you can make better decisions on Buy, Build, Partner, Join. 

With the developed tools you are able to identify value pools, critical control points and emerging customer needs in those ecosystems. Making it easier to ideate opportunities and to evaluate them.

In phase 2 you take a selected opportunity, analyze and valide your key assumptions to design your platform Business Model. Very often the concept is used to get buy-in from boards or investors. Also called the Concept phase or PoC phase, it’s important that here you run your first validation rounds to get 360 degree real market feedback.

In phase 3 it’s all about launching and solving the chicken-egg-problem. After you received initial funding or you made the decision to start, you need to build your first MVP (Minimal Viable Platform) and solve the chicken-egg-problem. But it’s not the end of the phase. Usually this phase runs 12-18 months and incl. building traction to validate the business case or to pivot. Goal is to build enough traction and profitability or to win new investors.

In phase 4 you want to embrace the full potential of your platform business and unlock network effects. Network effects are the core driver of growth and now is the time to understand the key effects, stimulate them and build strong reinforcement engines.

After you established your platform in the market, unlocked hyperscaling growth by network effects it’s now time to evolve. Identify adjacent areas you want to integrate into an integrated journey for your users. 

Ecosystem understanding of functional integration (horizontal and vertical) helps your teams to strategically prioritize the next steps.