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Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
Platforms facilitate a relationship between users and third-party developers. Aggregators, on the other hand, intermediate the relationship between users and third-party developers.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
Shopify is one of the most interesting companies in the world today.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
The platform enables you to start a business.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
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.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
Today, Substack provides a few tools, such as the Share button, to grow a newsletter.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
Remain a Platform, or become an Aggregator?
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
There are three fundamental aspects to every BiaB platform:
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
That is the key decision that Shopify, Substack, Teachable, Superpeer, MyVillage, Wonderschool, WeeCare, Squire, Dumpling, SmartHop, and every other BiaB platform will ultimately face.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
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?
Nikhil Basu Trivedi • Shopify and The Key Decision for Business-in-a-Box Platforms
Do they remain a Platform, or become an Aggregator?