2011 – Self Service Platforms are a gateway for unlocking value

I have always been intrigued by the letters sent to shareholders by both Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos. They are inspiring and, for wannabes like yours truly, a source of motivation and hope. So I am creating a series of articles on what learnings I took away from the letters of Jeff Bezos. This is the fifteenth letter in the series.

You can check out the complete series here: https://alphonserajdavid.com/category/book-reviews/non-fiction/jeff-bezos-stakeholder-letters/

This letter hit quite close to home. Over the last couple of weeks, there have been intense discussions around how to simplify our product range to a point where procurement, assembly and usage can be done without any intervention from the customer success or implementation team. A so-called self-service platform.

Lesson #1: Customer Testimonials drive your point home 1Mx better than you talking about it

The shareholder letter starts off with a series of eight customer testimonials; each touching a part of Amazon from AWS to Kindly to Marketplaces etc. it was bang on the money; Whernever possible use customer references. It just sells beter

Lesson #2: Providing customers freedom is the biggest value driver

At it’s core, Kindle llows you the freedom to write, publish and reach a million readers without the need for a middle man. AWS allows you to double your computing capacity in an instant frees them buying server space. Market place allows for mom and pop stores to thrive as they handle shipping and charging

In all these scenarios, The customer gets freedom as the core value driver.

As Jeff says ” The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity – to pursue their dreams.”

Lesson #3: Gatekeepers slow down innovation

Even the most well-intentioned and well meaning gatekeepers slow down innovation; how simple and how easy it will be if the customer identifies their need, comes into the website, buys it and starts using. That’s the core tenent when it comes to self-service platforms.

Lesson #4: Become a platform, or fall behind

If your work dosent convert into a self-service platform then you miss out on scale and risk falling behind. Whilst I disagree with this premise; there’s no quesitoning the fact that platforms are powerful moats.

Ending this with another Jeff Quote – These innovative, large-scale platforms are not zero-sum – they create win-win situations and create significant value for developers, entrepreneurs, customers, authors, and readers.