Business platforms are living, breathing and complex organisms.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “outside the stack” (ID: zhanwai_) , author : Leah Busque.
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The business platform for providing services is composed of the demand side and the supply side. In fact, in the process of matching the supply and demand sides, there are many potentially complex systems in the shopping mall. Brings a fast and good user experience.
The author of this article is the founder of TaskRabbit, a errand website. She explained the potential architecture of the commercial platform and pointed out that the biggest challenge of the platform is to fully match the supply and demand. The two major components of the business platform are the core machine and the management level. The former regulates the supply and demand of the business platform, and the latter is used for team operations. In recent years, many startups have emerged and started to contract part of the platform business, such as API-based background check tool Checkr.
The author also pointed out that the development of automation tools for supply and demand is uneven, and more companies are developing tools for supply and demand. The essential reason is that the complete structure of the supply side can support large-scale demand.
Originally from Noteworthy-the Journal Blog, author Leah Busque
On the surface, the business platform seems to be quite simple and straightforward, and matching supply and demand can make the business platform work. However, in reality, business platforms are by no means so simple: successful platforms are built on multiple complex systems that are interconnected and intertwined. In this respect, they resemble living, breathing organisms.
This is the main reason why I like commercial platforms: their complexity is the ultimate problem, and their impact is the ultimate reward. Despite all the potential complexities, when the business platform facilitates the decision-making of both the supply and demand sides, miracles occur and provide an incredibly fast, intuitive and seamless experience.
Cross-border e-commerce eBay is a good example. The platform has long been considered the mother of all commercial platforms, and the earliestBiandu has established one of the large-scale companies. On the surface of this business, the seller publishes what he wants to sell. When the buyer finds what he wants to buy, the transaction is concluded. It looks simple, right?
This is not the case. Behind the scenes, hundreds of people on eBay are focused on search. Based on recent purchase behavior, price, reputation, time, etc., science decides which products to present to buyers. This series of operations quickly became very complicated, and it was not easy to perfect this model.
We also face the same complexity on TaskRabbit. The site allows those who need additional income to accept temporary work and fill their free time as much as possible. An obvious challenge is to balance the Net Promoter Score (Net Promoter Score, hereinafter referred to as NPS) of Client (publisher) and Tasker (receiver), which is a measure of the likelihood of a client recommending a service. The two are related .
When the Client ’s NPS score is at the highest level in history, Tasker is usually at a low score, and vice versa. This leads to a seemingly simple question that is actually difficult to answer. Who is your main customer, no matter when and where? How to achieve a happy situation? How to make a decision and prioritize the results (product characteristics, customer service priorities, marketing plans, etc.) to maximize the satisfaction of both parties?
Analysis of 01 business platform
Although each business platform is different, most of them can be broken down into similar building blocks (also called units), which is critical to the operation and scale of the business. I call this an analysis of business platforms. In a fundamental analysis, I saw two different components.
The first one, which I call the core machine, runs all the relationships between the platform and supply and demand. This includes messaging, payment, mediation disputes and fraud detection. The second is management, which allows internal teams to run the operational aspects of the business. This includes analysis, user imitation, induction training, etc. Both are equally important.
02 Automated building blocks
When I created TaskRabbit in 2008, none of these building blocks were independent and ready-made. Each block had to be built from scratch, and the reconstruction process was often very difficult. Fortunately, with the success of the sharing economy and other platform businesses, many new companies have emerged, such as cloud communication service platforms Layer and Twilio, and enterprise training management platform Lessonly, identity authentication and identification technology service provider Trulioo, etc., simplify and automate part of the business platform analysis infrastructure.
Checkr is a completely API-based background check tool that can complete background checks in seconds. At TaskRabbit, we build a background check program from scratch, which requires several months of engineering team work to complete. In addition, in 2008, it took us 2 to 3 days to complete a background check. At that time, the entire process was completed manually.
In contrast, nowadays, if you want to start a platform business, you can use Checkr immediately, which saves a lot of trouble and time.
Layer is another great example of profiling automation. In the early days of TaskRabbit, there was no need to use a real-time messaging system. But ten years later, the use of this feature is the general trend. But in 2008, the customer’s perception of the communication interval was several hours, not minutes or seconds.
I remember when we discussed how to facilitate communication between Client and Tasker. In the beginning, we used Twilio to obscure the phone number and make direct calls. Then, we need a channel to send text-like messages back and forth, which requires us to build message interactions from scratch. Now with Layer, it provides a complete platform and API around customer engagement and real-time communication.
03 Power balance (tool)
It is worth noting that the number of automation tools between supply and demand is not balanced. Of the successful business platform models I have seen, most of them explicitly focus on building tools for the supply side.
In TaskRabbit, this means Taskers, getting work done on the platform and making money. In eBay, the supplier is the seller. In Airbnb, the supplier is the landlord. For Lyft, the supplier is the driver.
Actually, this means that the company has spent a disproportionate amount of time and the energy of developers to build potential infrastructure and tools that customers (ie, the demand side) have never seen.
At first glance, this seems counterintuitive, because the return on investment (ROI) seems negligible. However, in any commercial platform, it is crucial for the supply side to have the necessary tools to scale up and succeed. Otherwise, the business platform will be fragile and may not be able to face the influx of demand.
For example, in TaskRabbit, we complete the matching of Tasker and Client in a few seconds, which requires Tasker’s schedule, priority work area, hourly quotation, skills and current location. In order to get this information in real time, we must build a complete set of back-end tools that allow Tasker to manage its own work and planning, commuting hours, work area changes, hourly price updates, and work categoriesDon’t choose to wait, these are all operated through the App.
These features are not bells and whistles, but they make Tasker more efficient and are the basic requirements for the operation of the platform. Moreover, although the Client has never seen this interface, it ensures that they have a good service experience and can quickly and effectively connect with the most suitable Tasker.
The potential in this field is endless.