Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Sangeet Paul Choudary, who analyzes business models for internet startups at his blog Platformed.info. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Platform Thinking. You can follow Sangeet on Twitter at @sanguit. Technology startups are disruptive because they are driven by a desire to solve an unsolved problem in a unique way and create new value. Most large and established companies, in contrast, are driven by a desire to defeat competition and protect their market turf. Consider the problem of traveller accommodation. A regular hotel chain would go around studying its competition. It would create a set of features that differentiate it from competition. Finally, it would try to find ways of drawing customers away from competition leveraging these features. AirBnB did none of those things. In fact, AirBnB applied Platform Thinking to solve the problem of traveller accommodation. It didn’t compete on features. Instead, it created a platform that allowed anyone with a spare room, apartment or island to start running a B&B with access to a global market of travelers. Platform Competition AirBnB serves as an example of how today’s tech startups compete with traditional industry behemoths without appearing to do so, in the first place. When a platform like AirBnB or YouTube comes in, the established companies tend to dismiss it on the basis of inferior quality. Someone with a mattress in a living room clearly isn’t competin
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