Advising Large, Traditional Enterprises on How to Build and Scale a New Business from a Platform Hack into the Next Modern Monopoly: Applico

We are platform innovators comprised of platform entrepreneurs, operators, bankers, and designers.

The tech businesses you’re threatened by today are platforms. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Alibaba, Google and even Uber, Airbnb, and Snapchat – are all 21st-century modern monopolies.

Applico believes Silicon Valley shouldn’t be the only ones building successful platform businesses. The company identifies direct platform threats to its enterprise clients and execute on building platform businesses that can grow into a modern monopoly.

Applico is the world’s first Platform Innovation^® Company. The firm provides advisory services to build, execute, and scale platform businesses alongside large, traditional enterprises. Applico works with c-suites at Fortune 100 firms as well as multibillion-dollar private companies who want to take the initiative to create a platform business.

Founded in 2009 by Alex Moazed, Applico has worked with large enterprises for more than 8 years. With the release of Modern Monopolies in 2016, Alex Moazed and Nicholas Johnson coined a new industry focused on platform businesses. In the past few years, Applico’s Platform Innovation^® work has created hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise platform value.

Platform Innovation Services Offered

Platform Design:

Platform Design is a multi-month engagement in which Applico partners with the C-suite and dedicated client teams to identify the best platform opportunity and prove the business case for its creation.

The company’s embedded team of proven team of entrepreneurs, investment bankers and technologists will manually hack a working prototype to prove out key aspects of the business model and get it ready for launch. At the same time, it will provide your leadership with the information it needs to assess the financial impact of both competitive threats and your platform opportunity. 

Design the Ecosystem: Applico will create an actionable blueprint for the core functions of your platform business.  Its team will start with the core transaction, which is the engine that makes any platform run, and zero in on your target users with a combination of market research and user testing.

Validate with a Platform Prototype: Now it’s time to go to market. Applico will launch a prototype that provides live customer data on the platform’s core transaction.

Build the Business Case and Action Plan: Applico’s analyst team will model the downside risk associated with an existing modern monopoly achieving Critical Mass with a platform in your industry.

By the end of Platform Design, you will have a year-one action plan for your new platform business, including a go-to-market playbook, a technical roadmap for the MVP, resourcing needs, key business KPIs and milestones, and investment costs.

Platform Execution:

After your organization has gained alignment on the new business that was proven out during your Platform Design Engagement, it’s time to execute.

For the next 12 months, Applico’s embedded teams co-own the delivery of the product and the network of users (the customer ecosystem). The local team presence grows from Platform Design to ensure a successful launch of the business and acquisition of users.

Product Delivery (The Software): Every platform needs a great product built in an iterative manner. Most clients will have their own resources for development and UI design. However, it is the first time those resources and the organization will be building a platform in an agile manner. From proofs of concept to MVP and beyond, a successful platform’s product development lifecycle is predicated upon quick and agile releases that gain consumer and producer feedback.

User Network Delivery (The Users): Solving the chicken and egg problem is one of the hardest platform challenges, especially in the early growth stages.

Applico’s Execution teams possess data modeling, business development, and marketing backgrounds. This team will ensure that the right consumers and producers are joining the platform in the right sequencing.

Validate Further Capital Investment: Applico’s clients have the resources to scale a platform once it shows traction – the hard part is determining when the model is ready to grow. At the end of Platform Execution, the platform will show viable business traction and meet key success KPIs (e.g., Net Promoter Score, Usage, Churn) in order to warrant additional investment and further scale.

Retained Platform Advisory:

Large, traditional enterprises can build or buy their own platform businesses. For the latter,  C-suites need a platform advisor who can provide input internally and also gather information externally without revealing the client’s name to tip off the market. Post-acquisition, the platform entity needs help integrating with the core linear business and scaling key initiatives in a short period of time to make the deal successful.

On a monthly and weekly basis, Applico provides strategic sessions with client C-suites to help resolve big roadblocks to platform success. Applico’s advisory teams are comprised of proven operators and entrepreneurs who have built, scaled and exited platforms before.

In parallel, Applico’s Principals interface with the external community of platforms, consumers, producers, and key partners. Our team’s prior experience with platforms provides access to key decision-makers in the tech world without disclosing the client’s intentions. Principals can help facilitate deals and partnerships and provide market insight at the C-suite level.

Belaud the Brilliance

Alex Moazed, Founder and CEO: Alex Moazed is the Founder and CEO of Applico. He founded Applico in 2009 when he was 20 years old and funded the company with his own credit cards.

Alex co-authored the best-selling book, Modern Monopolies, which defines the platform business model dominating the 21st-century economy. In his role as CEO, he works directly with Fortune 500 C-suites and boards to help them build or buy their own platform businesses.

Alex is a graduate of Babson College, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Greenwich Country Day School.

“We work with C-Suites at multibillion-dollar companies who want to take the initiative to create a platform business.”