Abstract
Despite recent increasing interest in platforms, platform ecosystems, and platform firms, we still know little about why and how platform firms come into existence. Analyzing 52 publicly available interviews with platform entrepreneurs, managers, and venture capitalists, I explore the origin of platform firms. In a rigorous study based on several complementary qualitative techniques, I develop a theory and a process model showing how platform firms evolve from entrepreneurial motivation, market inefficiency and enabling technology. The paper unearths that platform firms arise as a result of four consecutive stages: pre-platform, platform evolution, platform sustainability, and platform firms. Along with these stages, two important contributions of the paper are: (1) constructing a theory of the platform firm and (2) introducing inter-platform and half-platform governance modes.
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