“Ideas in payments without an ignition plan aren’t worth the paper the powerpoints are printed on,” says David Evans, economist, Founder of Market Platform Dynamics and Faculty Coordinator for the PYMNTS Summer School Module on Igniting Mobile Commerce. Evans, along with successful serial entrepreneur, Karl Metha (Founder of Playspan, which was sold to Visa in 2011) and intrapreneur and Head of Financial Services at Walmart, Daniel Eckert will take Summer School Fellows through the fine points of nailing for payments what has become as elusive as finding the holy grail: getting scale, achieving network effects and delivering profits with mobile commerce innovation.
Evans’ work as an economist pioneered the entire field of two-sided markets and platform ignition more than a decade ago, and he’ll share nine key strategies for igniting platform businesses. Metha, whose online gaming payments platform ignited an entire online ecosystem and served as the basis for Visa’s digital wallet, V.me, will share critical insights about the complexities of gaining scale around a new payments idea – and making money in the process. Eckert, whose group decides how and why new payments ideas are deployed in the largest retailer in the world, will dissect some of Walmart’s recent experiences in launching and scaling mobile commerce initiatives. He’ll provide a tactical perspective on how ignition plans feed business models and monetization strategies.
“There are only a few key decisions that go into devising a workable ignition plan, but they are among the hardest and most important decisions that anyone involved in innovating in mobile commerce will ever make,” Evans further remarks. “Once you’ve made them, the very interdependent nature of the mobile payments and commerce ecosystem makes them pretty hard to unwind. The industry is filled with road-kill as a result of just not knowing the basics of how to do that.”
Summer School Fellows will leave with those basics. Now, we’re not saying that your ignition decisions will be any easier as a result of coming to Summer School. But knowing the basics from people who have written and implemented the mobile commerce ignition playbook will certainly give you a fighting head start.
Make sure you reserve your spot and apply today!
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