Hippie CEO Life #36 - The Dangers of Building Your Business On Someone Else’s Platform

December 16, 2022

Realistically, we are all building, at least in part, on top of someone else’s platform. A mobile app that is dependent upon Apple’s App Store, a boutique clothing store that is dependent upon Facebook’s Marketplace, and personal brands built on top of Twitter.

There is no getting away from it, we are all interconnected, and it’s in this interconnectedness where we find beauty and quality and value.

However, it would be wise to avoid, as much as possible, going all in on a single platform. Regardless if you are building a new mobile app or investing in growing your own personal brand, finding ways to diversify the platforms you are leveraging, will go a long way in creating stability and peace of mind.

Earlier in my career, i worked for an analytics agency that made the strategic decision to go all in on a partnership with Adobe. It was incredible. It was like we had some secret VIP pass that got us into the greatest parties, keep our table overflowing with the best foods and drinks, we were living our best lives. Right up until we weren’t. One day, i’m not exactly sure what changed, Adobe decided that they had got what they needed out of the partnership and ended it. Literally pushing the company to the brink of bankruptcy overnight.

I’ve had a handful of friends who have built their businesses entirely on top of YouTube, their entire revenue stream, their entire existence was dependent upon YouTube. Yet one day, YouTube decide to unilaterally change the rules on how they could get paid or even if they could continue to publish content. In one day, their entire business models were pushed to the edge of extinction.

Early in the history of 33 Sticks, we worked with several small retailers that built their entire company on top of the Facebook platform. If for some reason, their ability to influence new sales through Facebook’s paid media campaigns were to dry up, it would destroy their businesses. Guess what happened?

And today, we are seeing a lot of individuals and companies that have built their products and brands entirely on the Twitter platform that are now panicking as they come to the realization that Twitter is being led by an owner that is incredibly unstable and emotionally immature. An owner that could stub his toe getting out of bed one morning and fundamentally change the rules of the game, in order to repair his bruised ego, that could end up costing these businesses everything.

These are just a few examples, of the hundreds of platforms over that last 10 years, that have, often on an emotional whim, changed their terms of service resulting in lost revenue in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, and the complete collapse of countless businesses.

  1. Think about the platforms you are investing in.

  2. Analyze the risk of leveraging each platform for distribution, awareness, monitization.

  3. Diversify across as many platforms as is feasible, but avoid going all in on a single platform.

  4. For the platforms that you do choose to invest in, find ways in which you can mitigate risks if suddenly the platform changed the rules of the game or went away entirely.

“I mean if you put all of your eggs in one basket, boy, and that thing blows up you've got a real problem.” ~Jerry Bruckheimer

✌🏼💛

jason thompson

Jason Thompson is the CEO and co-founder of 33 Sticks, a boutique analytics company focused on helping businesses make human-centered decisions through data. He regularly speaks on topics related to data literacy and ethical analytics practices and is the co-author of the analytics children’s book ‘A is for Analytics’

https://www.hippieceolife.com/
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Hippie CEO Life #37 - Create Ripples

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Hippie CEO Life #35 - You Can’t Do That