The problem
Every new user is supposed to make your product more valuable. Then the spam arrives, one side of your marketplace outnumbers the other, and the network effect you were counting on quietly goes into reverse.
Platforms live and die on things founders rarely model: liquidity — do buyers reliably find sellers; the cold-start problem — zero users means zero value; the take rate — raise it five points and watch sellers leave, or not; and disintermediation — users who met on your platform now transacting off it.
A platform is a set of deliberate economic choices, not a piece of software. The ones that endure designed for these forces on purpose.
What this book gives you
How to Master Digital & Platform Models gives you the 18 frameworks behind network businesses — each a full chapter with the model behind it.
- Direct & Indirect Network Effects
- Two-Sided Marketplace
- The Liquidity Model
- Multi-Sided Platform
- Cold-Start / Chicken-and-Egg
- The Take-Rate Model
- Digital Flywheel
- Disintermediation Risk
… 18 in all, from network effects to platform envelopment.
See it move
Model your marketplace liquidity and take rate together. Push the take rate from 10% to 15% and watch sellers leave and liquidity thin — the death spiral that kills marketplaces quietly. Ease it back and the flywheel spins again. The lever that feels like free margin is often the one strangling the network.
Buying more than one category? All 25 books and every one of the 467 models are £29.99 in the Business Framework Omnibus — less than the price of a third book. Prefer to try first? The free Framework Starter Pack gives you five complete chapters and their live Excel models.
18 frameworks. One category. The complete learning path. Every model in Digital and Platform Models — explained, applied, and ready to use.
How to Master Digital and Platform Models walks you through the complete arc: 18 models, in the order you'd actually learn them, each with a full practitioner chapter and a live Excel companion.
- 18 models across Digital and Platform Models, the complete learning path
- Full practitioner chapters plus a live Excel companion for every model
- Written from 30+ years in investment banking, M&A and private equity
Digital and Platform Models at a Glance
