This post lays out how the Kin partnerships team is operating as we prepare to launch the Kin Ecosystem: where we are focusing our efforts, why we are focusing our efforts there, the value propositions we are considering, the uses cases we are considering, and the tools and content we want to implement on the platform to enable participation in the ecosystem.

Background

Over the past month, the Kin Partnerships team has been considering how we should organize our team, define the market opportunity for Kin, build the right partner tools and successfully launch the Kin Ecosystem. If you’ve been following Kin closely, you likely know what the vision and the mission are, but for those who haven’t, here’s a quick refresher:

Vision: Create a world where everyone can be fairly compensated for their contributions

Mission: Create a decentralized ecosystem of digital services

Kin Partnerships Focus Areas:

Scaling earning and spending within Kik. If you would like to read more about the first implementation of this project (IPLv2), you can do so here. Integrating 3–5 founding digital services into the Kin Ecosystem in order to test and optimize. Scaling the adoption of Kin by digital services post-KRE launch.

With these guiding principles in mind, we set out to develop work-streams and deliverables to get there. This is what the partnerships team has been working on over the past month and what culminated in a Kin partnerships offsite in Tel Aviv in late November. What I’ll share below is both a summary of the work done to-date and an open invitation for feedback, which can be directed to partners@kik.com.

Defining the Market Opportunity

The market of digital apps and services is massive — a focused and data-driven approach to the market is necessary to successfully launch the Kin Ecosystem. As such, “Defining the Market Opportunity” was the first exercise for the team. It is crucial to define and contextualize the market opportunity in order to (1) ensure that the team has a working knowledge of the market (2) begin focusing efforts on specific areas of the market (3) start formulating value propositions and use cases based on common attributes of certain market segments.

A way to approach the landscape (core segments):

Digital services that are oriented towards users earning (earn)

Digital services that are oriented towards users spending (spend)

Digital services which are oriented spending and earning in networks or marketplaces (two-way)

We selected these core segments because each can be broadly used to characterize user behavior and because each is correlated to effects of supply (earn) and demand (spend). These are key factors in the success of the Kin Ecosystem, particularly at its outset. You can read more about the economics of Kin here.

This does not constitute a comprehensive analysis but rather a first step in framing how we approach the partner landscape.

For each of the core segments, we did the same analysis:

Who comprises the core segment? This comes down to digital service categories — for example, survey networks (earn), premium content distributors (spend) and C2C virtual goods marketplaces (two-way).

comprises the core segment? This comes down to — for example, survey networks (earn), premium content distributors (spend) and C2C virtual goods marketplaces (two-way). What are commonalities of the digital services within each core segment? In other words, for each digital service category, we asked questions like: What is their product offering? What is their monetization model? What are their core goals as a business? What is their addressable market? Why do they partner with other businesses?

are commonalities of the digital services within each core segment? In other words, for each digital service category, we asked questions like: What is their product offering? What is their monetization model? What are their core goals as a business? What is their addressable market? Why do they partner with other businesses? Why does this core segment make sense as a potential focus area for Kin integration efforts?

does this core segment make sense as a potential focus area for Kin integration efforts? Partner insights: what firsthand knowledge do we have from speaking to partners in these digital service categories?

what firsthand knowledge do we have from speaking to partners in these digital service categories? Knowledge gaps: what don’t we know that we need to know in order to effectively and efficiently proceed?

By doing the analysis above, we built segment profiles, where we analyzed and described common traits of the digital service categories. This work was done first by a primary owner, and then with the wider team, and we were able to: (1) Gain a working knowledge of the market (2) Understand where we should focus our efforts (3) Begin understanding the value propositions and use cases for each category.

Segment profile summary for the two-way segment

Categories for Exploration

Below is a rough snapshot of which categories we landed on for further exploration coming out of the “Defining the Opportunity” sessions. The companies listed are there for the sake of example and not necessarily partners we are pursuing.

Categories for further exploration

Value Proposition Work

To better understand and effectively communicate value propositions, we looked at each category and posed the questions:

What are the potential uses cases for this category?

What are the goals of the digital services within this category?

What are the pain points of the digital services within this category?

Pros: how can Kin help solve for these pain points?

Cons: what can’t Kin do?

As you can see, this exercise is a direct extension of the “Defining the Market Opportunity.” Here is an example for the games category:

Preliminary value proposition exercise for the games category

The core value proposition is relatively consistent across core segments and digital service categories. The general question we’re answering here is: why would I, a digital service, want to integrate Kin into my application?

Primary Value Propositions:

Kin is a fundamentally new way to monetize that is in alignment with your users rather than at the expense of your users

Kin can increase your ability to build a more engaged community: (1) More opportunities for relevant interaction (2) Monetization model less disruptive to UX (3) Leverage viral strategies (4) Guide users through the lifecycle and to key feature areas of your app

Greater distribution due to access to the Kin network

Secondary Value Propositions:

First mover advantage (build expertise)

Driver of industry innovation (build cool stuff)

Need to adapt to align with evolving tech trends and evolving consumer expectations

Partner Lifecycle Mapping

The next work-stream was focused on customer centricity and discussing what we need to provide to ecosystem partners so that they can effectively participate in the ecosystem. The core partner lifecycle phases that need to be serviced in order to allow partners to successfully integrate Kin are: acquire → onboard → build → launch → grow.

Partner lifecycle mapping — what is needed at each stage?

Recap

What work has been done to-date?

Narrowed the market opportunity and defined our focus areas for ecosystem launch partners

Defined category-specific use cases for the focus categories

Defined category-specific value propositions for the focus categories

Mapped the partner lifecycle and began to lay out the requisite content and tools necessary to serve the partner throughout that lifecycle

This post is a quick summary of our thought process as we build the strategy for Kin Ecosystem partners through Q4 2018. As we move forward, we are eager to continue sharing our work and getting your feedback. You can direct any feedback to partners@kik.com.