About this course

Firms such as Apple, Alibaba, Facebook, SalesForce, Uber and Yelp operate platform ecosystems that match buyers and sellers, gain value and market share from network effects, and harness their users to innovate.

This course teaches you how to convert products to platforms and how to innovate in a platform environment. You will learn how to negotiate platform startup, convert existing products to platforms, and make vital decisions on issues of openness, cannibalization, and competition.

Learners in this course will solve real-life problems using concepts from two sided networks, information asymmetry, pricing, intellectual property, and game theory.

The instructor for this course literally wrote the book on the topic: ” Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy –and How to Make Them Work for You. ”

This course is part of both the Digital Leadership and Product Management MicroMasters programs.

What you’ll learn

• How to successfully launch and design a business platform
• Why platform firms beat product firms and how the structure of platform firms is fundamentally different
• Why traditional platform pricing models fail and how to choose a successful pricing model
• How to compete in winner-take-all network markets.