10 Years Later, Platforms Still Define the Connected Economy

In 2016, David Evans and Richard Schmalensee published the Harvard Business School Press book, Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms. The book explained what made platforms work, why so many failed, and why the ones that got it right reshaped entire industries. It gave executives, investors and policymakers a framework for understanding how businesses like Uber, Open Table, Airbnb, Visa and Simon Properties had grown by solving the hard problems of connecting members of different groups who can benefit from doing business with each other.

Next year marks the tenth anniversary of the book’s publication, and it’s worth asking this question: Have platforms lived up to their promise, or outgrown the playbook that made them successful in the first place?

Matchmakers introduced the world to the four challenges that every platform must solve:

1. Getting both sides on board
   A platform is worthless with only drivers or only riders, shoppers but no merchants, restaurants but no diners, and so on. Solving the “chicken-and-egg” problem only looks easy after critical mass has been achieved. Attracting enough participation on both sides to make the platform valuable remains the most daunting challenge for any founder.
2. Pricing value across the sides
   Platforms don’t have to charge everyone the same way. They must decide who pays, how much and whether to subsidize one side to attract the other. Successful platforms create sustainable economics while making sure participants see more value than cost. It’s harder to do than it sounds. Get it wrong and it’s a business lifetime trying to undo it.
3. Designing for trust
   From the start, platforms have to manage risk, reputation and fraud. Airbnb had to convince travelers to sleep in strangers’ homes, eBay had to make sure buyers trusted sellers and PayPal had to stop fraudsters before they stopped consumers. The trust problem has only intensified as AI, bots and digital identity reshape what it means to transact online. Trust, along with governance, go hand in hand when igniting platforms. It is the invisible force that can make or break success.
4. Scaling innovation
   Every successful platform eventually hits its next hurdle: how to keep innovating once the core business works. The lesson from Matchmakers is that growth depends not only on size but on expanding use cases, fostering ecosystem partnerships and finding new ways to create value for participants. And doing that in a way that drives profitable growth and sensible unit economics.

These four challenges defined the first wave of digital platforms. And they remain just as relevant today.

If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that platforms don’t just connect buyers and sellers. They redefine industries. They change how people pay, travel, shop, entertain themselves, and even how they work. Today, platforms are at the center of everything from retail to credit to healthcare to gen AI.

But the landscape has shifted.

Regulators have platforms in their sights, scrutinizing pricing, competition and data use. Consumers demand more control over their digital identities. AI is collapsing search, discovery and commerce into conversations rather than clicks. Platforms must now reimagine what it means to match participants when the “match” is often brokered by algorithms that know more than either side.

That’s why the tenth anniversary of Matchmakers is more than a book milestone. It’s a moment to reflect on how platforms continue to shape innovation in the connected economy.

When Evans and Schmalensee published Matchmakers in 2016, they gave us a systematic way to understand the hard problems of building and scaling platforms. Ten years later, those same problems of ignition, trust, pricing, and growth remain the defining tests of platform success.

That’s why David Evans and I are co-hosting a new podcast series dedicated to the next wave of Matchmakers.

My work over the last decade has put me in daily conversation with platform founders and CEOs who are wrestling with these challenges in real time, and often breaking new ground in solving them. Together, David and I want to use this ten-year anniversary not just to look back, but to create a forum where today’s builders can share their insights, their setbacks and their playbooks for success.

Twice a month, the Matchmakers Podcast will feature the founders and CEOs building the next generation of platforms across the connected economy. Each episode will spotlight how they’re tackling the four enduring challenges of platform strategy. And what they see coming next.

Our goal is simple: to create a living chronicle of platform innovation, told by the leaders building it. Just as Matchmakers gave the first systematic look at the economics of platforms, this series will capture the real-world lessons of platform builders a decade later.

The connected economy is entering its next great reset. Platforms that once defined the past decade are being forced to evolve or risk irrelevance. At the same time, new platforms are emerging that apply the economics of matching to areas no one imagined in 2016. These include innovative technologies that span digital and physical.

That’s what makes the tenth anniversary of Matchmakers more than a history lesson. It’s a reminder that the platform playbook is still being written. And that the founders and CEOs building today’s businesses are the ones writing it.

So, here’s the question.

Where do you fit?

If you’re a founder or CEO doing the hard work of building or scaling a platform that is reshaping your corner of the connected  economy, then your story belongs in this series.

Join us, share your lessons, and be part of defining how platforms will drive innovation in the decade ahead.

DM me if you’re a Matchmaker and would like to be considered for the series.

Join the more than 15,000 subscribers who’ve already said yes to what’s NEXT.

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