What’s Your “Super App” Strategy?
By: Sam Lin
Tags: Digital Transformation, Strategy, Alipay, Platform, Super Apps

I realized “Super App Strategy” may not commonly reckoned in Silicon Valley when bouncing ideas with colleagues recently. Partially because most iconic successful stories started from China instead of Silicon Valley, such as WeChat & Alipay. Some even argue it’ll never work in the west. Yes, they maybe right. A success is seldom reachable by simply coping exactly what others do anyway. Also, I’m not saying this will be easy nor for everyone. But because of that, it’s typically very rewarding to whoever successful adapt properly for their unique context.

For some, “Super App” strategy make more senses, e.g. social, payment, navigation & even smart watch/car/TV if you generalize “Super App” a bit further. In general, you should look into broader user journeys or user touch points, e.g. Uber wants to be the 1st super app in the west. So be brave to dream big differently, here maybe something you can “steal” 😉.

Source: FT The ‘operating system for everyday life’. Psst! FT, “Platform” is a better analogy than “OS”.

What Is A Super App?

Once upon a time a visionary leader asked: platforms can be in very different forms. Indeed if we further generalize the platform concept to all “Platform-ish” mechanisms, Alipay & WeChat are good examples of how a popular mobile app becomes Platform-ish to many 3r party services. In a simple term: one app rules them all. Users can complete many tasks within an app no hassles, e.g. finding & installing apps, new sign-in, dealing with different UX.

Convenience Store Analogy

Super App is not even a brand new idea. It’s one from of Platform-ish: one-stop shop, such as a convenience store. Which creates aggregated synergies on the “Place” function in terms of McCarthy’s 4 Ps. The key value preposition is to increase convenience for shoppers at one store. Which maximizes the utility function of a store to visitors. Similarly super apps are “convenience stores” providing convenient services: [X,Y,Z…] within the same place to users. A fun fact, 7–11 is on very different level in the east. You can literally do everything at 7–11 in Taiwan. Which’s a great example how a franchise successfully goes beyond by adapting a regional market.

goo.gl/maps/KSaT8rDPVykbbidq6, 7–11 @ high altitude: 2.2 km

Customer Adoption — The Real Secret Source

Jeff Bezos said: “The only thing that’s disruptive is customer adoption”. This is especial true for Super App strategies. Anyone can build a platform, but only a platform with many active users “matters”. Simply because a high user reach is the best carrot luting more creates to a platform. So the platform and ecosystem virtuous cycle may start to feed into the further grow for Consumer & Creator Interactions. Which is the real “business” of any platform. As momentum builds up, a platform can sustain itself eventually & increases the Barriers to Entry to new players. But how can you really start it?

Super App Virtuous Cycle

Grow The Utility & Connect The Dots

To start something new, you need to believe in “If you build it, they will come”. To boost your chance a bit better, you need focus on the core utility function first. It’s something bring users to your app at the first place. As you figure that out, you may consider suitable Super App strategies.

For example, Alipay rise up from the boom of Alibaba e-commerce initially. It also “got lucky” as a First Mover, because no popular 3rd-party payment services were established in China back then. Therefore, it quickly became the top Chinese on-line payment provider. Then the boom of smartphone happened, Alipay moved very faster to adopt & eventually became a Super App. A few critical moves were:

The distribution problem is not a thing for Alipay because of its dominance in mobile payment with 54.5% of transactions in Q3 2019. While others working hard to acquire merchants, all merchants rush to join Alipay ecosystem because they’re afraid to miss out of business. This gives Alipay a very strong bargain power of suppliers. With the full control of its payment end-to-end UX, process & risk factors, Alipay moved fast on mobile payment innovations, such as adding NFC & QR code support. These make mobile payment super easy everywhere. Sometimes even fun e.g. the digital HongBao(lucky money) war. Naturally the transition to cash-free & convergence of online + offline worlds were accelerated. Eventually to connect the dots, Alipay opened its door & made it easier to create Mini-Apps for 3rd parties. It’s not only lower the barrier for SMBs, those can not even afford to build their own apps. But, it also increases the convenience to users & its payment utility. So guess what, users spend more time on the app because they can do their jobs easily there. Which feeds into its virtuous cycle.

How May It Work For You?

In the digital economy, some opportunities may be good to apply the formula. To be fair, Alipay’s success is indeed very difficult to replicate. For example US mobile payment has not yet reach the same scale. Not even with endeavors of Apple & etc. because US payment ecosystem is very established & complicated. Nevertheless, you may still steal a few tricks by digging deeper.

Focus on enhancing your core utility functions & usability to grow the user base first. In the digital economy, you need to be №1 or 2. If it’s not possible in your current big pond, try to target a smaller pond. Better yet, to redefine your own pond if you have a strong heart. Mindfully explore your Critical User Journeys & expanding to adjacent Jobs to Be Done, e.g. by time, place, people & etc. domains. Build the facility to make it easier for your target partners. So, they will come to your “platform”, because it’s beneficial to them too.

You might just get lucky. Psst! Starbucks mobile app, what do you want to be when you grow up 🤔?

One More Trick

Next time when you need something in Taiwan, check out 7–11. Not only 7–11 likely has it, but also 7–11 is everywhere in Taiwan.

Discretion

The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company. Furthermore, they are more of thought experiments & open to debate, because strategy means nothing without proper execution.