Here Come the Super Apps.
MuleSoft had it right. During my time at Salesforce, we learned about a jujitsu move called The Architecture Reframe. It was an approach to integration architecture and reusable services necessary to build smooth, super apps.
Silicon Valley has discussed super apps for the last 5 years while China built them.
The US raises a lot of money to build features. They call them companies and so everyone treats them as such. It can be confusing what a company, a feature, an app, or a super app actually is then, what it looks like, what it can do, or what it should do? The internet says a super app is an application that combines different services into one place. Sounds nifty.
Think about opening one app on your phone to shop for groceries, pay your rent, refill your prescription, book a trip, chat with friends, scan your news feed, and respond to an incoming customer conversation for your small business — that’s a super app.
Is your iPhone the super app?
Super apps defiantly appear to be closer to an operating system. They are interesting because they use existing user traffic and distribution to drive business to their partners. The more you can do on the app — with as little friction — the more robust the flywheel.
I was unknowingly making a case for super apps every time I talked to a CTO about Mulesoft. Here’s the 30-second pitch — Teams internally within a company want the ability to spin up different services and user experiences quickly. The problem was a developer, business analyst, data scientist, or product manager was blocked from accessing CRM data, for example. To quickly access internal data at a large company typically involved undermining IT security, hiring an unnecessary resource, or simply doing work that was already done but needed to be visible or shared.
This ecosystem architecture reframe blah blah jargon nonsense gave any company a more efficient way for more teams to build new user experiences faster.
Is Apple a Super App?
Likewise, Super apps are only possible with secure access to data, and (a good UI), oh ya, and a lot of user trust. High user trust enables you to aggregate more user data (AAPL is crushing this strategy).
Because the slightest mistake could break trust, super apps must reconsider what data is necessary to enable partners to build new services and user experiences in the ecosystem. The hard part is to provide secure access to data. It’s creating a house where you can show someone all the doors, easily visible, then open or close any given door with the push of a button. The whole ecosystem can slowly die or quickly grow based on who has access to data and what IT is sharing with outside partners.
Letting people quickly set their own controls is what I’m most fascinated with as a UX Researcher and Product Designer. Circling back to the GOAT of super apps, WeChat, if you want to prevent a business you’ve engaged with from contacting you again, one Swipe is all it takes. One Swipe is the micro-UX design that sets the tone for trust, high user engagement, and organic growth.
Is Stripe a Super App?
Once trust is locked down, you have the green light to bring in payments. Payment networks are the invisible cash cow of an ecosystem you own. Owning your payments network also keeps a tight circle of trust and frictionless micro-transactions. Stripe’s business model is billions of dollars in transaction volume, but if you build a super app, it can be yours too.
We have yet to see a company claim super app status in the US. Many CTOs take the horizontal approach when building internal or external applications.
The actual challenge around selling MuleSoft was shifting the theoretical approach of an entire company. Converting non-believers into believers is a lot of work. This wasn’t a simple sale that came ready to go out of the box. Rather than focusing on that quick fix integrating A to B (eyyo Zapier) — we had to keep asking customers what new experiences might get built if every product manager had instant secure access to any internal database. What new revenue streams could you open up? Companies like WeWork adopted Mulesoft’s architecture approach and were ready to expand.
Was WeWork a Super App?
Imagine WeWork before the ship went sideways. Their ecosystem had a high number of daily active users and strong engagement if you looked at their metrics. This doesn’t mean instant monetization.
Let’s apply the super app concept (Mulesofts architecture reframe) to booking office space.
WeWork could grow vertically by integrating new services that are relevant to people in need of a place to sit and work, such as being able to book restaurant reservations for a client dinner nearby, booking a hotel near the WeWork space you’ll be working from on your trip to NYC next week, Finding a pro IT guy to fix a broken laptop, or getting that breakfast delivered to your desk before you get there.
WeWork wouldn’t have to build everything themselves; they would focus on building a solid core product and payments infrastructure. Third-party partners would plug in for the rest.
Doing it the Mulesoft way, building APIs at systems, process, and user-facing layers means developers didn’t have to rebuild anything and only focused on improving the framework.
The WeWork app benefits from transaction fees, more user data, and retained mindshare, while the partner network benefits from the added distribution and business.
The takeaway:
- Vertical over just horizontal growth
- Vertical growth might negatively impact short-term revenue.
- More screen time to partners drives flywheels.
- Giving control to users positively impacts long-term growth.
- Empower your UX Designers, users bouncing around services in one app could quickly create friction and clutter.
