The Platform Journey

In this episode, Avanish Sahai and Chris Grusz use the marketplace journey of Amazon Web Services as a springboard to discuss a variety of platform-related topics: The driver of a successful flywheel (2:17) Developing products and fostering selection to match customer demand (5:28) Balancing feature development between both buyers and sellers to maximize value for both (7:45) The advantages offere...

Marcus and Avanish talk about the following and more: ServiceNow’s history as a platform company from the very beginning (3:05) The cooperation and cohesion of ServiceNow’s internal products and what partners can build (6:49) The importance of committing to an ecosystem as well as a platform—and what companies really want (12:45) The challenge of long-term investment into a platform and ecosystem...

In this episode, you can hear Laura and Avanish discuss: Expanding single channels and products to create more value (7:00) The importance of internal alignment on products and partners (10:48) Using modeling to optimize partnerships and platform strategy (13:35) Key measures of success when growing partnership ecosystems (16:47) The benefit of defining clear metrics of success (21:12) Laura’s adv...

In this episode, Avanish and Peter discuss:  The power of maintaining a customer-centric approach (4:24) Looking down, not up, to determine how to really fix the source of a problem within your platform (5:39) How to think about delivering true value to the developers on your platform (10:17) Not setting out on the platform journey before you’re ready (16:19) Choosing the right marketing motion fo...

In the Season 2 premiere of The Platform Journey , Avanish and Kevin discuss:  Driving value to your underlying platform through partnerships (3:35)  Reevaluating the way we categorize partners; building network effects to solve customer problems (6:17)  Embracing “coopetition” and the importance of transparency when building a platform (9:16)  Understanding and communicating the core and context...

Highlights of Avanish, Damien, and Nick's discussion include: Xero’s growth story from one person’s headache to a global platform supporting over 3 million customers The genesis of Xero’s impressive platform strategy How the company has created a playground for developers to solve for Xero’s customers in new and innovative ways Understanding the role the tension between things that the company cou...

In this week’s episode, Kathy Tsitovich discusses LegalZoom’s transformation into a platform, with all of the challenges and successes that have occurred along the way.  See key topics from her discussion with Avanish below:  The early days of platforms and the LegalZoom customer channel (01:42) Identifying stakeholders in order to guide platform strategy (05:51) Curating valuable, lasting partner...

Tom and Avanish kick off the session focusing on what it means to build a platform, and a partner ecosystem around that platform. Then, they dig into where Tom is on the platform journey. He’s been building OneStream for some time and it has grown amazingly well, with a marketplace of over 50 solutions and over 200 partners. They cover…  Driving towards constant improvement and platform dependency...

In this episode, Arshad Matin details Avetta’s impressive platform journey and the critical components to developing a successful SaaS platform that provides value to everyone that touches it. See key topics in his discussion with Avanish below: Understanding Avetta, a two-sided network for supply chain risk management (0:57) Enriching a platform with data and APIs (2:45) The tipping point of ecos...

In this episode, Anu Bharadwaj shares her tricks of the trade as one of the most impressive product and platform minds we know. She draws on her time at Microsoft, where she launched several products for Microsoft Studio, as well as her current role leading operations for Atlassian, to provide some really fascinating insights.  How Atlassian got its start (1:23) Anu’s unique  journey from Microsof...

In this episode, Mike Rosenbaum shares his experience and key learnings on what it really takes to build a powerful platform, drawing on his time leading product management and go-to-market strategy for core CRM products at Salesforce and as EVP of the Salesforce Platform team, to his current role leading Guidewire.  The early innings of platform building at Salesforce (3:30) What you should be co...

Having started out as a marketing applications company, HubSpot’s goal today is to be the number one platform for scaling companies.  In this episode, co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah shares some of the most important lessons he has learned on the journey since HubSpot’s founding in 2006. HubSpot’s journey to becoming a CRM platform (1:17) How to measure success as a platform (3:14) How to attract...