The interconnectedness of businesses (producers/suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers) and customers has never been more critical in the global business environment. Reliance on traditional means of connecting with businesses and other consumers is fraught with limited availability of contact. The platform ecosystem provides a veritable channel for small businesses to interact with many businesses and consumers who themselves are also stakeholders in the platform ecosystem. Business ecosystems provide essential benefits such as the means to a wide range of capabilities, the capacity to scale quickly, enhanced resiliency, and flexibility (Ulrich Pidun et al., 2019). New businesses must gain speedy access to capabilities that are external to the organization and expensive to acquire internally. The Nigerian business terrain is awash with millions of micro and small businesses that serve as the backbone of the Nigerian economy through the provision of employment to millions of people, raw materials to other businesses (large or small) and are critical to the supply chain in all sectors of the economy. The need to gain capabilities, resources, and core competencies cannot be over-emphasized; the fragility of these businesses considering the COVID-19 pandemic presents an invaluable opportunity for small business owners and operators first to change their mindsets to enable them to appreciate the vast benefits derivable from the interactions with other stakeholders on a platform they can be part of for little or no charge. The paper seeks to discover how ecosystem platforms can influence small businesses' capabilities and core competencies in Nigeria to generate innovation.