Platform Generation
A growing library for understanding platform business models and digital ecosystems through the Platform Business Model Canvas.
Platform Generation · PBMC Library
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Search the PBMC Library, browse platform ecosystems from A–Z, or jump straight into the case browser.
Read platforms. Compare ecosystems. Design better models.
Platform business models and digital ecosystems analysed with the Platform Business Model Canvas (PBMC).
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About Platform Generation
Hey guys.
Welcome to this space for all platform enthusiasts, researchers, and pattern seekers out there.
We live in a world shaped by platforms. We are the Platform Generation: learning to read platforms, create them, and notice how they shape us in return.
I’m a guest researcher at the Technical University of Berlin, an economist and industrial engineer with a PhD in economics focused on platform business models. Over the years, I’ve worked across the public and private sectors on digital transformation, innovation, and new business models, and developed the Platform Business Model Canvas as part of my research.
I have analysed a wide range of platforms, and I see this site as my contribution to the ongoing conversation around platform business models: how they work, how they evolve, and how we can design them better.
Whether you want to understand an existing platform, compare different models, or structure your own idea, the PBMC helps make the key actors, value exchanges, governance mechanisms, and core transactions visible.
Dr. Davis Adedayo Eisape
Research & ideas
Platforms, business models, innovation.
My publications investigate how platforms work and how they shape ecosystems and innovation.
Transforming pipelines into digital platforms: An illustrative case study transforming a traditional pipeline business model in the standardization industry into a digital platform ↗
Comparing platform business models: A balanced scorecard approach based on the platform business model canvas ↗
Standard setting organizations and open source communities: Partners or competitors? ↗
The platform business model canvas-designing and visualizing platform business models ↗
Normungs—Und Standardisierungsorganisationen und Open Source Communities—Partner Oder Wettbewerber ↗
Platform business models in sharing economy: using a balanced scorecard approach to compare Airbnb, Marriott and Uber business model canvases. ↗
Digital transformation in context of platform business models and open source: the case of the German Standardization Institute ↗
Transforming Pipelines into Digital Platforms: An Illustrative Case Study Transforming a Traditional Pipeline Business Model in the Standardization Industry into a Digital Platform ↗
Nordic Journal of Media Management ↗
Whitepaper
FortisBC Energy Exchange
An exploratory conceptual platform blueprint from linear utility to participatory energy ecosystem, co-authored with Dr. Maryam Jalilianatar.
Read the whitepaper ↗Videos & writing
Different formats for different questions.
Elsewhere on the web
More about me and my work.
Platform Knowledge
Understand platform business models.
Platform Generation connects platform research with practical case analysis. The library helps researchers, students, strategists and practitioners understand how platforms coordinate consumers, providers, partners and owners around shared value creation.
What is the PBMC?
The Platform Business Model Canvas
The Platform Business Model Canvas (PBMC) maps platform business models and digital ecosystems. It makes the Consumer, Provider, Partner and Owner perspectives visible around a Core Value Unit and shows how governance, access, activities, resources and core transactions fit together.
What is a platform business model?
A platform business model creates value by orchestrating interactions between multiple participant groups rather than only producing and selling through a linear pipeline.
How do platform ecosystems work?
Platform ecosystems coordinate participants through shared rules, access mechanisms, incentives and transactions. The PBMC makes those relationships comparable across industries.
How do you analyse a platform?
Start with the Core Value Unit, identify the key actors, map their jobs, gains and pains, then trace the few transactions and governance mechanisms that make the ecosystem work.
Why compare platform cases?
Using one analytical framework across finance, commerce, mobility, public-sector and infrastructure ecosystems makes structural similarities and differences easier to see.
Open PBMC
Use it. Cite it. Build on it.
The case-specific analysis and structured data are available under CC BY 4.0. You may cite, copy, analyze and adapt the case materials with attribution.
PBMC reuse
The Platform Business Model Canvas (PBMC) canvas/template is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. You may reproduce, teach with, use commercially and adapt it, provided clear attribution to the original PBMC remains and adapted versions are shared under the same license.
AttributionPlatform Business Model Canvas (PBMC), Dr. Davis Eisape / Platform Generation — platformgeneration.com
For adapted versionsAdapted from the Platform Business Model Canvas (PBMC), Dr. Davis Eisape / Platform Generation — platformgeneration.com
An unmodified Official PBMC should retain its displayed provenance rather than having Platform Generation attribution removed or replaced. An adapted version may carry your own branding, but the PBMC attribution must remain clearly visible and the adaptation must not be presented as an Official PBMC.
Platform Generation logos and the Official PBMC designation are not included in the Creative Commons licenses and may not be used to imply endorsement by Platform Generation.