Platform Risk: A Double Edged Sword
The tech Gods giveth, and the tech Gods taketh away ⚔️
Shopify App Store.
Google Workspace Marketplace.
Stripe App Marketplace.
The list goes on...
I’m a little embarrassed to say that I had no idea any of these app stores existed just a couple years ago. The embedded network effects of a household brand name are a dream for anyone looking for distribution for their software. Building one reliable sales channel is hard enough. If you could ride the coattails of a behemoth, why wouldn’t you?
When I first learned of the phrase “platform risk”, I was still a wantrepreneur scouring any educational material I could get my hands on. One of the hidden gems from those that have walked the micro SaaS path before me was XO Capital’s blog. It’s down at the moment, but thank the tech Gods for Wayback Machine. You see, Andrew Pierno from XO was the first to put this idea into my head. There’s only one problem. I had *no idea* what the hell he was talking about. He never really explained what it meant, although it’s not hard to infer.
It’s time for a real world example. Shopify app developers are living through platform risk as you read this. Recently, Shopify decided to do something about their app store review mess. I used to get tons of solicitation emails from seedy people looking to get paid to leave positive or negative reviews for Shopify apps. It turns out A LOT of apps participated in this shady practice. Combine this with Shopify merchants installing apps like a kid in a candy store and low quality apps that don’t deliver on their promises, and well you have a problem. Many well-intentioned app devs simply got caught in the crossfire with merchants who expected a rabbit to be pulled out of a hat.
So what did Shopify do? They purged reviews like they were an insidious disease. Good or bad. Real or fake. Just gone. It’s gotten to the point where legitimate five star reviews aren’t even being published. On one of my own apps that I had *just* rebuilt, rebranded and relaunched, I lost all five of my five star reviews. Back to zero.
Don’t get me wrong. Shopify built an incredible ecosystem, in a convoluted industry, for app owners like myself to profit from. Native distribution through an app store means I don’t have to burn money on ad spend just to get customers to try my app, let alone look at it. However, they know their position in the market and that we simply have to abide by their ever-changing infrastructure. And that, my curious readers, is platform risk.
I didn’t anticipate going neck-deep into the Shopify swimming pool. After I acquired one Shopify app, two more kind of just fell into my lap. That will be the topic of my next post. For now, I’m not planning to expand my portfolio any further into Shopify. I may build some apps from scratch, but the ones I already own provide a solid foundation for me to build off of.
Outro: