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The cofounders of foursquare are deciding how to respond to competitive threats and scale up the organization. Foursquare was a location-based online service that allowed users to "check in" to a location using an application on a smartphone. Foursquare kept track of a user's check-ins, shared them with users' friends, and unlocked "Specials" that gave users discounts at nearby locations. Within a year and a half of its founding the company had 45 employees and over 5 million users and was valued in excess of $100 million. However, many competitors, including Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, developed competitive services requiring foursquare to respond.      

Dropbox is a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2006, that provides online storage and backup services to millions of customers using a "freemium" (free + premium offers) business model. The case recounts Dropbox's history from conception through mid-2010, when founder/CEO Drew Houston must make strategic decisions about new product features, how to target enterprise customers, and whether to pursue distribution deals with smartphone manufacturers.

In late 2009, the management of Mochi Media, a venture-backed startup, must decide how to invest scarce resources to achieve continued growth. Mochi has developed a three-sided platform, connecting Flash game developers, sites that aggregate these games, and advertisers. The case describes the company's history from conception through 2009, when strategic options include broadening beyond Flash games into iPhone-, Android- and Facebook-based games, and vertically integrating into the game aggregator role, which would capture more value but put Mochi into direct competition with platform partners.

In October 2010, Triangulate's founder/CEO must determine what product features to develop and what marketing programs to pursue in order to boost the odds of successfully raising another venture capital round for his nine month-old Facebook dating application. The case recounts the process of launching a consumer internet startup, from idea conception through initial efforts to validate the concept, followed by product launch and subsequent business model "pivots."

After investing $9 million of venture capital, Cake Financial had failed to reach critical mass. In early 2010 Cake's assets were sold and the company was dissolved. Founded in 2006, the San Francisco-based Internet company allowed users to monitor their investments and communicate with each other about their portfolio strategies. The case recounts key decisions made by founder and CEO Steve Carpenter, including several "pivots" -- shifts in business model, position, and strategy -- made by Cake's team in response to market feedback.

In Feb. 2010, management of the Huffington Post, a fast-growing but not-yet-profitable Internet newspaper that aggregates blog posts from unpaid contributors and excerpts of stories originally published by other news sites, faces a number of decisions about its growth strategy. Foremost, Huffington Post management must determine whether to rely to a greater extent upon social networking technologies (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) to select and present the content delivered to specific users or continue to rely on human editors to play a curator role.

Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One option is to stay focused on the company's core competence, i.e., developing superior search solutions and monetizing them through targeted advertising. Another option is to branch into new arenas, for example, build Google into a portal like Yahoo or MSN; extend Google's role in e-commerce beyond search, to encompass a more active role as an intermediary (like eBay) facilitating transactions; or challenge Microsoft's position on the PC desktop by developing software to compete with Office and Windows.

The case 'Google Inc.' describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. It reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others. It also asks what Google should do next. One option is to stay focused on the company's core competence, i.e., developing superior search solutions and monetizing them through targeted advertising. Another option is to branch into new arenas; for example, build Google into a portal like Yahoo! or MSN; extend Google's role in e-commerce beyond search, to encompass a more active role as an intermediary (like eBay) facilitating transactions; or challenge Microsoft's position on the PC desktop by developing software to compete with Office and Windows.

In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had achieved profitability and strong growth. However, sustaining growth would prove challenging. Growth had strained Linden Lab's technical infrastructure. Also, although Second Life had attracted a large, loyal base of early adopters, it was unclear whether their preferences were similar to those of mainstream consumers. In this context, management faced choices about platform strategy and target markets. Should Linden Lab continue to offer an open platform or build its own solutions for customers? Should it target adult consumers, teens, enterprise customers, or the education market?

Sermo operates the leading online professional network for physicians in the United States. Doctors use Sermo free of charge to post surveys regarding diagnostic and treatment concerns and to discuss these concerns, as well as challenges with managing their practices. Sermo earns revenue by charging clients who would value early information regarding the effectiveness of new drugs and medical devices-investment managers, pharmaceutical companies, and regulatory authorities. Clients cannot participate in doctors' online discussions, but they can view survey results and post their own surveys to Sermo's physician members. The case discusses challenges confronting Sermo in mobilizing this two-sided platform and in balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of the platform's two sides.

Ted Morgan, the founder of Skyhook Wireless just received a call from Steve Jobs of Apple asking for a meeting. Ted must decide how to prepare for a meeting that could finally give Skyhook an anchor customer. Ted and his team have worked for three years to build a new approach to location based services that uses WiFi rather than the well-established satellite based GPS technology. Skyhook's approach is more accurate than GPS in urban areas and, unlike GPS, it works indoors. Yet, large device manufacturers are reluctant to be the first ones to use it. Skyhook has no customers. The board and investors are getting restless. Should Ted offer Steve Jobs a free license, or pay him for Apple's user base - or should he insist on a substantial license fee? The case examines the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in creating a technology-based company and in getting market traction against an established standard.

In a platform-mediated network, users rely on a common platform (provided by one or more intermediaries) that encompasses infrastructure and rules required by users to transact with each other. A fundamental design decision for firms that aspire to develop platform-mediated networks is whether to preserve proprietary control or share their platform with rivals. A proprietary platform has a single provider that solely controls its technology (for example, Federal Express, Apple Macintosh, or Google). With a shared platform such as Visa, DVD, or Linux, multiple firms collaborate in developing the platform's technology and then compete in offering users different but compatible versions of the platform. This article examines factors that favor proprietary versus shared models when designing platforms and then explains how management challenges differ for proprietary and shared platform providers when mobilizing

As Facebook topped one billion monthly users in October 2012, the online social network continued to face questions about how best to monetize its surging traffic. The company could invest further in new advertising products, which represented the majority of the revenue thus far, or concentrate on the Facebook Platform and help third-party developers create and distribute their own applications. After a highly anticipated yet largely disappointing initial public offering (IPO), Facebook's stock price steadily declined. It became critical for the Facebook team to identify sustainable growth opportunities, particularly as more of its user base accessed the site via mobile devices.

Companies looking to launch a two-sided platform--between, for example, credit card users and merchants or search engine users and advertisers--must overcome the reluctance of one side to sign on until it's confident the other side will be well populated. It's a common business quandary, but Google and Charles Schwab both found a way around it.

Firms that aspire to develop two-sided platforms face a formidable challenge. Prospective users on each side will not invest in the platform until they are confident there will be enough users on the other side. Traditional strategies for dealing with this dilemma--subsidizing users or securing their exclusive affiliation--are costly and risky. Describes less costly staged strategies for building two-sided platforms. With the "vendor to two-sided platform" strategy, a firm starts as a vendor selling products or services to customers on just one side of a potential--but not yet existing--two-sided network. Once the first side is firmly established, it proves easier to attract users to the network's other side during stage two. With the "merchant to two-sided platform" strategy, a firm starts as a merchant buying goods from many different suppliers and reselling them, in the process absorbing all the risk of platform failure. In stage two, the firm shifts risk and control back to some or all of its suppliers, giving them more responsibility for managing inventory, pricing, and merchandising their wares. Presents examples and offers guidelines for when to use each strategy.

Two-sided networks, or platforms, often enjoy significantly greater returns at scale than traditional value chains. Despite these advantages, many companies struggle to develop these platforms in a sustainable way. This largely stems from an assumption that products with network effects will operate in the same way as traditional products, leading managers to make highly flawed decisions. In this article, the authors draw on recent theoretical work to guide executives negotiating the challenges of two-sided networks, touching on how to develop a pricing scheme, how to manage "winner take all" dynamics, and how to address the threat of envelopment by an adjacent platform. There are no easy answers, but thinking through the challenges presented in this piece will give you the tools you need to move forward with confidence.

Defines platform-mediated networks and introduces concepts central to their study. First, it defines networks and network effects; explains how network effects influence users' willingness-to-pay for network access; describes factors that determine the strength of network effects; discusses how a network's success may depend upon users' expectations about its growth prospects; defines network externalities and their significance; presents a taxonomy of networks based on the number of distinct user groups--sides--that they encompass; and explains why network effects should be viewed as demand-related rather than supply-related scale economies. Second, it defines platforms; describes different roles that firms play in platform creation and maintenance; discusses platform boundaries, for example, the distinction between platform providers and network users; and presents schemes for categorizing platforms based on their principal function, the structure of the networks they serve, and who controls them.

In early 2006, PayPal management is deciding how to respond to Google's entry into online payments. PayPal, owned by eBay, has targeted online merchants outside eBay's auction community for its next wave of expansion. Google represents a potential threat to PayPal's "off eBay" strategy, as do incumbent credit card companies. PayPal management must determine whether to increase investment in its "off eBay" strategy; how to allocate investments between the two sides of its payment network (i.e., consumers and merchants) which consumer segments to target (e.g., existing PayPal account holders vs. new users); which types of merchants to recruit (e.g., large vs. small); and what changes to make to pricing terms and product features.

Discusses platform structure in new networked markets, that is, whether a market that exhibits network effects will be served by a single platform or by rival platforms. Defines "platforms" and "platform structure"; describes factors that influence the odds that a winner-take-all outcome will prevail; and presents a framework for analyzing these factors in combination to predict platform structure.

Managers at Atheros, a leading provider of wireless local area network chipsets, must decide whether to join a special interest group (SIG) proposed by Intel to end an impasse over standards for the 802.11n (11n), the next generation of "Wi-Fi" technology. Two factions are supporting rival proposals for 11n standards in the IEEE, the electronics industry's chief standards-setting organization. Working outside the IEEE's formal processes, Intel's SIG would advance a compromise that could break the deadlock. Alternatively, the SIG could provoke a backlash, resulting in the IEEE's approval of a different standard for 11n. In that event, Intel and its SIG allies would suffer a severe time-to-market setback in exploiting what promises to be a large, fast-growing chip market.