I recently did a podcast on nfx list of 16 Network Effects. NFX’s 16 Network Effects. Plus, Embedding and Other Small Digital Ideas (Tech Strategy – Podcast 158) James Currier and his venture capital firm nfx really do go into a lot of detail about network effects as an idea. It’s worth reading his Network […]
Years ago, I started mapping out the evolution of Alibaba with pictures. I was having a hard time keeping all the moving parts in mind. And I was becoming more and more convinced that digital company development is path dependent. What comes next depends on what just happened. Microsoft is only capable of its current […]
I recently met with Rodolfo Chung, CEO of rapidly rising Zé Delivery in Brazil. This is a beverage delivery service that was launched by AB InBev right before Covid – and then took off like a rocket during the lockdown. Basically, it’s a mobile app that lets you order any of 500 SKUs for beer, […]
My standard question is: What is the quality of the business? I go through lots of checklists for this. It generally takes me 40 pages of written notes to get through a basic assessment of company quality. But the simple version is: What is the market size and its growth? Is there a long-term secular […]
Ok. Let me see if I can impress you today. In Part 1, I wrote about ANE Logistics, an interesting Chinese company. But I really wanted to make a few points about the nature of logistics and physical networks: There is a difference between networks, platform business models and network effects. Physical networks are different […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses the rise of “digital sin stocks” such as Skillz and Electronic Arts. He explores the factors that have contributed to their success, such as the growth of mobile gaming and the increasing popularity of esports. He also discusses the risks that investors face when investing in these types of companies, such as the potential for regulation and the addictive nature of their products.
Network effects are the brass ring of the digital age. Companies and investors, especially venture capitalists, are actively reaching for them. And, like platform business models, they can have multiple important effects. Creating surprisingly durable competitive advantages is one of them. First some general comments and then I’ll go into three types of network effects. […]
Fiverr is an Israeli company, so not an Asia tech company per se. But it has a lot of freelancers in developing Asia. And it has a particularly compelling marketplace strategy. So I thought it was worth covering. First, a bit of background. Fiverr is a typical marketplace platform for services. But for B2B, not […]
In this episode of the Tech Strategy podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses the classic marketplace platform playbook, using Fiverr as an example. He explains how these platforms work, the competitive advantages they enjoy, such as network effects and economies of scale, and the challenges they face, such as competition from other platforms and the need to keep up with changing customer demands.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses how digital economics can impact well-established competitive advantages like economies of scale. He argues that digital economics can create new competitive advantages, but it can also destroy old ones. For example, he cites the example of Amazon, which has been able to achieve economies of scale by using digital technologies to automate its warehouses and distribution network.