I started doing research on platforms in 2014, in those months the business world was going through one of the biggest revolutions in recent years. There wasn't a day when - opening a newspaper or an industry magazine - there wasn't news of a new startup promising the world that it would become the new Airbnb or the new Uber of something else. Some examples? I'm talking about cases like Airbnb for cars that wanted to hybridize Uber and Airbnb models by allowing anyone to rent out their car when not in use, or Airbnb for pets or for babysitting. I was especially happy to see all this interest around the world of platforms and hoped that in the span of a few years I would have had the opportunity to study dozens, if not hundreds, of new highly successful platforms. Six to seven years later, I began to realize that things would not go exactly that way. Despite the hundreds, thousands, of platforms launched around the world, most scientific articles, but also industry experts more in general, are still talking about... Airbnb and Uber. How is it possible that more than a decade after their birth, followed by thousands of other cases, we are still talking about these two companies? From this simple observation, one of our research was born and we asked ourselves: what makes Airbnb and Uber different from the others, why are they successful? Or more in general, what makes a successful digital platform? For sake of time I will analyze in depth only one of the two cases, in particular I will tell you about Uber. The Uber story begins in 2009 in the United States of America when one of the founders spent $800 for the service of a personal driver. He wondered if there wasn't a cheaper way to get this kind of service, thinking that basically anyone with a car and some free time could do that kind of work. Uber, the service that allows anyone - although not in every country - to become a cab driver and that has revolutionized the world of urban transport, was born from this very simple observation. Basically, the platform was based on the intuition that there is someone looking for a service -the end user- and that -potentially- anyone else can offer that service to him. Obviously this depends on the complexity, the required skills and the required equipment to offer the service. It can be true for a lift, it would be harder for a cardiac surgery. Still, even if it is true, without a platform these two parties (end user and provider) would struggle to find each other, as if there is a lot of friction, a clutch in the marketplace. In fact, technically, we talk about platforms as tools that can resolve these market frictions. The real problem is related to the perception that many innovators or entrepreneurs have, believing that - once the friction is identified - their job is done by designing a simple platform. In reality, Uber designed a complex system that is able to give value to both parties, to the traveler - for example by allowing her to have real-time information on the driver's whereabouts or to pay directly on the app using the credit card, and to the driver for example providing her clients nearby. More importantly, it has managed to bring both types of customers on board and become a giant platform in a short time. Unfortunately, however, this is not the end point of a platform, but simply the beginning, and this is what Uber and Airbnb have taught us. A few years after the launch of Uber, the company realized it had a very efficient platform, but still had a number of idle resources within it. On the one hand, there were many drivers waiting to receive a call from the app, driving around the city waiting. On the other hand, a gigantic mass of users who, very often, do not need a ride.... but have other kinds of needs. From this simple observation comes the possibility of creating Uber eats. The service that leverage Uber drivers to deliver food from the restaurants to their homes or offices From the point of view of the platform, they just added another side: the restaurants. In the original vision of Uber eats - and this is still true in some cities - the Uber drivers themselves bring the food to people's homes who at this point will have the opportunity to enjoy two services on the same platform: calling a cab or ordering a pizza. Due to competition from other platforms, such as Deliveroo, and the absence of drivers due to regulations that blocked their operations, in some countries - like Italy for example - Uber Eats later has spread the work of riders. This new side shows us how a successful platform like Uber has been able to exploit the critical mass it created in the first phase of development by going - in fact - to generate a new transaction: the one between users and restaurants, through the same platform. The story of Uber's evolution, however, doesn't end there. What they realized a few years later is that over the course of more than a decade they collected billions of data points that tell how people - and at this point also things - move around the city. That's why Uber has created Uber Movement, a service through which researchers, governmental agencies, or anyone with an interest in mobility can access this data and do research on it. This is again a new side added through a new service that allows us to take advantage of a resource generated by the platform over the years. The Airbnb story would allow us to highlight a similar dynamic. You can find in the material supporting this video the article summarizing its story. Let's try to model this evolution. It all starts by identifying the fact that many people have a car that is not being used and some free time...and the fact that these resources could be used to offer a service to someone else. In other words, it starts with the identification of some idle assets: time and cars On the basis of these assets, we can design a double value proposition to bring on board the end users who may be interested in the service, but also those who can contribute to its delivery, in this case the drivers. After having designed at least from a theoretical point of view this system, the next step that Uber or any other platform has to take is to bring on board these customers having then the platform finally working. Many platforms believe that the process of creating a successful platform-based service is over here and that Uber's success lies in these three steps. The hundreds of failed platforms prove instead that, this is only the beginning. After creating a working platform, both Uber and Airbnb, asked themselves what idle assets on the platform could still be exploited and for whom they could be a value driver.. And we've seen how Uber identified again underallocated time and equipment to serve restaurants and, later , data to serve researchers. In other words, the cycle continues in a potentially infinite loop, transforming platforms from mere friction fighters....to idle asset hunters. To summarize point number one: fighting market frictions is simply the beginning, not the end. Point number two: value must be designed and must be clear to all parties involved. Point number three: users getting on board and using the platform can generate new idle assets that can lead to following platform evolution. In other words: to have a successful platform, it's not enough to solve a friction in the marketplace, you must become a true idle asset hunter. Their journey is not straightforward as it may seem, still, if you are able to find idle assets, platforms can act as magnifiers and transform them from valueless assets for somebody to real gems for others
