How to Prioritize Which Platform to Build For Next
Use these 3 lenses to guide your Product Surface Area expansion
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I grew up pirating music from LimeWire, ripping CD's to my computer and dropping $0.99 per song on iTunes.
So when this app that let you stream the world's music LEGALLY and for FREE arrived on the scene in the Summer of 2011, it actually felt like magic.
Spotify grew rapidly to tens of millions of users across the world, stirring up an unbelievable amount of loyalty and controversy. No surprise there. They quickly expanded from a native desktop experience to a mobile experience and when I got my first smartphone (iPhone 4S, *chef’s kiss*), Spotify was one of the first apps I downloaded.
But here’s where Spotify strategy to dominate music streaming really kicked into high gear.
After their move from desktop to mobile, Spotify could have just stopped there. You could always use bluetooth or an aux cable to stream music to your car, console, or home speaker system. So why bother with the hassle of re-writing or porting over code just to build a native experience for one more platform?
Short answer?
Because Spotify's vision was so much bigger.
Spotify's Big Vision
"We imagined a world where music would just seamlessly flow from one device to the next as you go about your day. From your desktop to your phone to your home speakers. Like so many other advancements in tech, it seams intuitive and obvious now, but at the time, in a world of moving CDs and files around between devices, it was visionary."
—Spotify: A Product Story (Podcast)
In 2011, Spotify began to realize this vision by partnering with the only internet-connected speaker system on the market at the time: Sonos.
Except there was one big problem.
Sonos offered a queueing experience that allowed listeners to add songs to their Sonos queue from a variety of streaming services including Google Music and Rhapsody. For Spotify, that meant they would have to give up their competitive edge: the user experience.
"Because we hadn't moved into original content yet, we were essentially offering our users the exact same music catalogue that they could get anywhere else. So we had to compete on experience. Which meant we had to have control over the experience."
—Spotify: A Product Story (Podcast)
They had to play the game. They had to be on these connected devices alongside the other top streamers. But this move would have inevitably watered down Spotify's brand, especially as they made more and more of these compromises on other smart devices.
So Spotify went back to the drawing board and adjusted course.
Because Spotify's vision was user-centric instead of device-centric like most models at the time including Sonos, Spotify came up with another idea that would change Spotify forever: Spotify Connect
Spotify Connect offered the ability for your listening session to happen in the cloud and for each internet-connected device to simply hook into that listening session. This would allow you to seamlessly transition between all of your devices, managing and controlling your listening session from wherever you are.
Rather than using Google Music, Apple Music, Rhapsody or Pandora, users would naturally gravitate toward Spotify knowing that their stream would pick up right where they left off, no matter which device they were on.
And because there were many more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) than there were streaming services, Spotify had the leverage they needed to get Sonos to integrate with Spotify Connect.
By going up-stream (Get it? Stream?), Spotify expanded their surface area to a multitude of devices and platforms in order to realize their vision of music that follows you wherever you go, powering the soundtrack for your life.
How to decide which platforms to build for:
Spotify's story is a bit out of touch for the smaller (*ahem* scrappier) startups who are expanding their Product Surface Area for the first time. But to me, it beautifully illustrate one of the lenses we can use to answer the question, "which platform should I build for next?"
I think there are three strategic lenses that can guide you to expand your Product Surface Area.
The Lens of Demand
The Lens of Technology
The Lens of Vision
The Lens of Demand
Strava was originally built for mobile in 2009. It helps runners, bikers and other athletes track their exercises and share them with their community. As smart watches became mainstream, users were more and more likely to leave their phones at home. So Strava built WatchOS (Apple) and WearOS (Android) apps to allow athletes to track their progress without the extra bulk and weight of a phone.
What are your users asking for? Is there a platform or device that's a natural surface for your product to exist on? Build toward user demand.
The Lens of Technology
Figma could have started with a desktop application. But with competitors like Sketch and Adobe XD dominating the desktop experience, it would have been regressive. The founders of Figma wanted to build a tool for the web because WebGL had finally unlocked the computer's GPU to render complex graphics in the browser. This offered an opportunity to turn the traditional clunky design method on its head by introducing real-time collaboration and shareable links instead of Dropbox files named FINAL_v16.psd.
Figma | How To Become a $20B Threat
Hey, I’m Jacob ✌️ Welcome to all of the product people who subscribed since last time! If you’re not a subscriber yet, I hope you’ll consider joining this band of like-minded folks who are all learning how to build better products. Questions or feedback?
What new technology could open new possibilities for your product than what's currently on the market? Build toward the technology.
The Lens of Vision
In the coming years, billions of people will be coming online. People who, up to this point, have never bought something online, uploaded anything to the cloud or read a digital article. Peter Diamandis calls these people the "Rising Billions." Replit is on a mission to bring the next billion software creators online and since the rising billions will most likely begin accessing the internet from a cell phone first, it made sense that Replit would build a mobile IDE. This, of course, required a lot of foresight that started with a big, bold vision.
What do you hope for the world to become? And what will you have to do to help it get there? Build toward your vision.
Spotify's Dominance
Spotify comfortably sits as the reigning champ of audio streaming services with 30%+ market share and continues to innovate in exciting and controversial ways.
And while their platform ubiquity is only part of their rise to dominance, I have no doubt that it was a significant part of their product flywheel.
🫡 Stories from the Trenches
When we started building home service software, competitors offered mobile companion apps that very much felt like they had just crammed enterprise-grade desktop software into a tiny screen. More importantly, it wasn't full-featured so you would still have to log in on your desktop computer when you got home in the evenings to finish your admin.
While evening admin was accepted as a necessary evil in the industry, we knew there was a better way. Looking through the Lens of Vision, we believed there was a way to leave your admin in the field instead of taking it home with you at night. A way to craft an experience that felt simple enough to do from your phone in the field, but under the hood had the power you needed to finish your work before you pulled up in your driveway at night.
Additionally, we looked through the Lens of Technology and saw that mobile devices offered us a suite of tools we could tap into in the field such as GPS, accelerometers, cameras and gyroscopes. That's why we chose to build mobile-first.
Unfortunately, despite our efforts to build a tool that didn't require a desktop experience, many users still managed other aspects of their business from their computer and needed that desktop option. So we looked through the last lens - the Lens of Demand - and concluded that we needed to expand to a new platform: the browser.
As an optimistic product builder, I love dreaming about what could be. Maybe a CarPlay integration that gives you directions to your next job along your route. Or a WatchOS app that allows you to easily track your tasks and time on the job without pulling out your phone. Who knows what will come next. Either way...
I'll see you in the trenches 🫡
—Jacob ✌️
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Hey Jacob, love this article on different lenses!
Normie alert: one part that confused me a bit was “in the trenches” section, I’m guessing that’s what you do build home service software? What is home service software? Like maintenance?