Barnacle Business Strategy

The "Barnacle Strategy" involves building businesses on top of growing platforms to leverage their growth and ecosystem. This approach has been successfully used with platforms like WordPress and Shopify.

Core Concept

• Attach your business to a "whale" (large growing platform)
• Grow alongside the platform as it expands
• Benefit from the platform's existing ecosystem and user base

Successful Examples

• WordPress ecosystem

  • Powers 40% of the internet
  • Multiple companies built successful businesses on top
  • WPBeginner leveraged this to build multiple successful plugins
  • Automatic (WordPress company) valued between $3-7B

• Shopify ecosystem

  • Andrew Wilkinson built successful business making Shopify themes
  • Expanded into Shopify apps
  • Rode the growth of the platform

New Opportunities

• QuickBooks/Xero apps

  • Large existing customer base (30M+ QuickBooks users)
  • Apps doing $2-6M in revenue
  • Opportunity to acquire and consolidate multiple apps
  • Potential for cross-selling between platforms

• Key Benefits

  • Essential tools that users need
  • Sticky customer base
  • High profitability potential
  • Not venture-scale growth but extremely profitable

Strategy Implementation

• Look for platforms with:

  • Large and growing user base
  • Essential business tools
  • Strong ecosystem support
  • Ability to build complementary products

• Focus on:

  • Understanding user pain points
  • Building quality solutions
  • Cross-selling opportunities
  • Potential for acquisition and consolidation

Revenue Model

• Mix of:
  • Direct sales to platform users
  • White label/reseller opportunities
  • Premium features and add-ons
  • Support and maintenance services

The key is finding platforms that are growing and essential to businesses, then building valuable tools that solve real problems for users of that platform.