Main takeaways: - What is "platformization" and how to kick start your organizations journey towards developing a platform - Learn about strategies to develop a Platform roadmap and how to effectively execute on it using a playbook - What skills and experiences are valuable to succeed as a Platform Product Manager

1. www.productschool.com
How to Build a Platform to Power New
Product Areas by Airbnb PMs

2. Join 35,000+Product
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3. C O U R S E S
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4. C O U R S E S
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8. C O U R S E S
For experienced Product Managers
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Product
Leadership

9. Dipesh
Bhattacharya &
Michelle Leon
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E RS

10. Intro

11. Michelle Leon
● Previously engineer at Airbnb
● Now PM for Categorization (ML team working on structured
listing data)
● Studied CS and Business at UC Berkeley. Go Bears!
● Fun fact: Britney Spears follows me on Twitter

12. ● Previously engineer and management consultant
● PM for Core API and Product Platform
● Studied construction engineering and MBA
● Fun fact: Developed and published an app in iTunes App
Store during parent leaveDipesh
Bhattacharya

13. Where does Homes Platform fit in Airbnb ?
Category
team
Homes Platform
Enables Homes businesses to scale responsibly, inclusively, and efficiently
Category
team (e.g.,
Plus)
Category
team
Category
team

14. When do you need a platform?
Case studies from Airbnb

15. Airbnb started with a
single shared room on
Rausch Street.

16. 50-100 LISTINGS
101-300 LISTINGS
301-1000 LISTINGS
1001+ LISTINGS
2009

17. 50-100 LISTINGS
101-300 LISTINGS
301-1000 LISTINGS
1001+ LISTINGS
2012

18. 50-100 LISTINGS
101-300 LISTINGS
301-1000 LISTINGS
1001+ LISTINGS
2015

19. 50-100 LISTINGS
101-300 LISTINGS
301-1000 LISTINGS
1001+ LISTINGS
2017

20. Since then, we’ve grown
to over 6 million listings
worldwide.

21. Apartment
Hotel
Community
As we’ve grown, the
types of properties on
our platform have also
increased...
Bed &
Breakfast
Houseboat
Ca
Farm Stay

22. Entire
Apartment
Beds in a
Hotel
Homes in a
Community
Private Rooms
in a Bed &
Breakfast
Shared room
in a
Houseboat
Share
Ca
Farm Stay
...and with them, the
complexity of our systems
to onboard, manage, and
merchandise supply.

23. In the early days, we built things fast and this
complexity was manageable. Our business needed to
move quickly and grow.
Problem

24. But ten years in, the proliferation of variants made it
slower to develop new features.
Problem

25. Example: Calendar
Management
Here’s the simple
calendar view.
It hasn’t changed much
since Airbnb started,
we’re still thinking of
that single shared
room on Rausch St.

26. Example: Calendar
Management
As more travelers stay
on Airbnb, hosts start
to list multiple rooms
and even entire
places.
Now, they need a
calendar tool which
supports that.

27. Example: Calendar
Management
Our hosts start
becoming more
professional. They may
manage multiple
properties on Airbnb
and be full-time hosts.
Our tools need to flex
and support these
“super-users”.

28. Example: Calendar
Management
Bed and Breakfasts
and Boutique Hotels
start coming onto the
platform.
Our tools need to
support advanced
features like
representative
inventory, rate plans,
and more.

29. Without a platform, each of these teams would build a
separate tool. This leads to a bunch of problems

30. ● Decreased developer efficiency
○ Forked code = 2x complexity
● Inconsistent user experience
○ “App has seams”
● Quality decreases: More prone to
bugs and performance regressions

31. A one-stop-shop to create and manage a new category
Solution

32. Adding a new feature in a platform world is painless with out-of-
the-box components and frameworks
Platform
User Tools
APIs
Components
Documentation

33. When to platformize?
Lessons

34. There’s a tradeoff between moving quickly in the short
term and building for the long-term.

35. Scrappy startup
launching it’s first
product
Development cost
Scalability,Extensibility,Reusability Mature company
building a search
service serving
millions of queries
per second

36. The right time to invest in platform is different for each
company. There’s no clear “stage” or “company size”
when you should start.
As a PM, you have to weigh the benefits and costs.

37. After deciding to invest in foundation, make sure to
explicitly carve out resources.
Otherwise, it’s too easy to cut the project later for
something that’s “on fire”.
Parting words on this topic

38. What makes a good platform?
Lessons

39. A good platform
● Is business case agnostic
● Is intuitive to use
● Is easy to extend
● Hides complexities
● Does what’s expected
● Enables 10x productivity gains

40. Our Journey

41. Our Platform Journey
Organic opportunities Growth areas
We also outlined areas where
Airbnb will grow
We started with areas that have
organic demand for
platformization
Unlocking teams
We also identified areas that will
unlock the most number of
teams

42. A few of our initiatives
Hosting Platform Search Platform Universal Listings
Provide a set of APIs
and common tools that
support all types of
Hosts - Plus,
Marketplace,
Experiences, Pro
Hosts, etc.
Build a hosted search
platform that supports
Homes, Experiences,
and Restaurant search
with minimal
development.
Support onboarding
and management of
any inventory type -
such as multiple rooms
in a home, hotels, and
future types like event
spaces.
Build a platform that
can support any type of
rule-based functionality
- such as pricing rules,
availability rules, and
standards.
Rules Framework

43. Case Study

44. Case Study: Reviews Platform
Guest Review Flow Host Review Flow Plus Review Flow

45. Reviews Platformization Journey
TIMELINES
Gather
Requirements
Prioritized Use
Cases
Functional and Tech
design
We met with with all
client teams to
understand their current
and future business
needs
We prioritized which use
cases we would like to
platformize
We designed the unified
flow and identified
forking areas. Next we
developed tech specs
on what components to
develop and enable
platformization
Implemented the
platform components
and migrated existing
functionality to these
components
Implementation,
launch, and migration

46. Case Study: Reviews Platform
COMPONENTS
Common
Review Flow
Question
Bank
Notification
Framework
Unified data
and display
layer

47. Roadmapping

48. How do we build our roadmap?
Client request Airbnb roadmap Identify common patterns
We listen to our client teams
and understand their roadmap
and pain points
We stay tuned to overall
Airbnb’s roadmap and growth
plans and identify areas of
efficiency gains
We look into our existing
products and identify common
patterns

49. Client Request: How do we get them ?
● Quarterly client “tours”
● Shared quarterly plan review
● Updated templates to mark dependencies
● Dedicated intake form
● Deprecated methods: Slack channels, Hallroom conversations, informal
requests etc.

50. FUTURE VISION: HOMES TEAMS CAN LAUNCH NEW
BUSINESSES, CATEGORIES, AND SEGMENTS IN DAYS
AND NOT IN MONTHS OR YEARS

51. How will the stack look like ?
API PLATFORM
PRODUCT PLATFORM
DATA UNDERSTANDING PLATFORM
Client Team
Client Team
Client Team
INFRASTRU
CTURE

52. Wrap-up

53. Key Takeaways:
● Do not platformize early, but don’t wait
too long either
● Start with “organic” use cases
● Get buy-in from all stakeholders
● Develop robust processes for intake,
guidelines, communications
● Build for the long term

54. Platform PM vs. Business PM
How are they different ?
Business PM Platform PM
● Focused on moving metrics
● Often short term win driven
● Experiment driven
● Narrow focus on domain area
● Customers are end users
● High level understanding of
technology
● Focused on enabling other teams
● Long term projects
● Driven by long term business strategy
● Broader focus across domains and
categories
● Customers are other product teams
● Deeper understanding of technology

55. Breaking into Platform
Product Management
● No one path, but a lot of folks move from a technical role
to Platform PM
● Strong execution skills and experience in project
management (especially TPM)
● Ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty
● Translate high level product goals to platform implications
● Ability to craft long term vision

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