{"id":1425,"date":"2015-10-05T00:03:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T04:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/nike-from-products-to-platform\/"},"modified":"2015-10-05T12:45:20","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T16:45:20","slug":"nike-from-products-to-platform","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/nike-from-products-to-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"Nike \u2013 from products to platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nike1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While I was interning in Seattle this summer, I learned from a friend — who happens to be both a software developer and a fitness enthusiast — that she had applied to \u201cenroll\u201d her startup idea with the Nike+ Accelerator program. Every\u00a0summer, Nike hosts multiple start-up companies in their company headquarters in Portland for 3 months and helps them build products and services using Nike\u2019s user data and proprietary technologies. At the Demo Days in June, in Portland and San Francisco, these companies\u00a0present their product concepts to over 1000 Nike leaders, angel\u00a0investors, venture capitalists, industry leaders, and members of the media.<\/p>\n

The Nike+ Accelerator program encourages startups to adopt and build for the Nike+ platform that Nike has invested in over the last several years. Nike+ is a membership site that provides members with a variety of apps and resources to encourage motivation, fitness, and commitment to a healthy and fit lifestyle.\u00a0Nike+ is adding hundreds of millions of athletes in 190 countries every day, and is fast approaching 30 million members in total. In addition to Nike+, Nike also lets developers use its proprietary NikeFuel technology, which is a Nike-designed algorithm that measures body movement.<\/p>\n

Nike has had success with its Digital Sport products before \u2013 in particular with Nike-developed apps (such as Nike+Running, which lets runners track distance, calories burned and speed; Nike+Training Club, which lets users choose among over 100 workouts; and Nike Soccer, which allows soccer players to find or schedule a game). Nike+ Accelerator is different, however, in that it enables\u00a0external developers to build software (and potentially even hardware) for Nike users using Nike\u2019s technology. Nike wants to do more than just sell products \u2013 they want to create a platform that benefits users, external developers, and in turn the company\u2019s products.<\/p>\n

As with any multi-sided platform with network effects, the Nike+ Accelerator program has distinct value creation<\/strong> propositions for all parties involved:<\/p>\n