Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms

But becoming an Aggregator can also lead you astray from your core focus and vision, and can upset the businesses that came to your platform to launch in the first place, precisely because they did not want to get aggregated down the road. The most successful businesses created on the BiaB platform could leave.

And, as highlighted by Shopify’s recent announcements, BiaB Platforms end up facing a key strategic decision: how do they enable businesses on their platform to grow?

Remain a Platform, or become an Aggregator?

Substack could decide, for example, to provide an app that showcases all of its writers, enabling a user to search through the newsletters, browse articles, and sign up for those they wish to. This would be analogous to the Shop app by Shopify.

Platforms facilitate a relationship between users and third-party developers. Aggregators, on the other hand, intermediate the relationship between users and third-party developers.

It's the leader in Business-in-a-Box (BiaB) Platforms, a set of companies that enable new businesses to be started, managed, and grown using their products.

Shopify is one of the most interesting companies in the world today.

The platform enables you to start a business.

That is the key decision that Shopify, Substack, Teachable, Superpeer, MyVillage, Wonderschool, WeeCare, Squire, Dumpling, SmartHop, and every other BiaB platform will ultimately face.