So in today's episode, we want to talk about, the concept of building an ecosystem, thinking about how it can benefit your business, and if you can sell it that way.    Notes on the time-stamped show: [00:00] Introduction [01:24] How pricing can be utilised to build new and stickier business models that customers find difficult to leave. [04:53] Business models, such as espresso and Apple, emphasising how they created an ecosystem wherein everything the customers need is offered, boosting profitability. [08:18] How different it is to build ecosystems in B2B settings, and how can they do it. [12:20] How to build an ecosystem and create barriers against competitors without your customers realising it. [15:44] Joanna highlights the need of striking a balance between customer value, manufacturing, and product innovation, for a successful business transformation. Hello and welcome to another edition of Pricing College, with your hosts, Aodhan Campbell and Joanna Wells   Someone told me last week that I'm known as the cool teacher of Pricing College, so thank you very much for that. I actually made that up. So in today's episode, we want to talk about, the concept of building an ecosystem, thinking about how it can benefit your business, and if you can sell it that way. So what is an ecosystem? In theory, it's building a system that basically increases the chances that you will sell things to people. Whether that is the classic selling of a printing machine, and then printing, you know cartridges or an espresso machine. Then locking in, that you have to sell them on espresso pods. So that's a concept that we will discuss today.    When I think about this concept, I describe it as a sale system, something we can sell more of to customers. But actually, beneath that, an ecosystem is a whole business model change. But before we get on to that, what I'm particularly interested in was how pricing can be used to make a new business model and sales model stickier, not more difficult for customers to get out of but also more valuable to customers so they wouldn't want to get out of this new system that you've built. And thinking about that, you've mentioned espresso... these people love espresso. It's a great business model and it's a new one. When you think about where espresso came from, so Nescafe and all that was built on the dry roasted coffee empire. But obviously, the business model was declining for years. People wanted fresher coffee, but they also wanted the convenience of that coffee at home but they didn't want to compromise on taste. So, espresso was launched. It really did disrupt the market in a good way and gave customers what they wanted. The key about the pricing: the actual machine itself was priced considerably below the alternative. Now the alternative was those, remember all those fancy, we have to grind down coffee beans, etcetera.  Now, they were priced considerably higher on a per unit basis compared to the espresso. But the thing that really locked customers into espresso wasn't the machine. This was the genius behind the idea of the time. It was the pods that at a unit level were priced comparatively high. So as a customer, "Wow what a great business model. It's new, it's great. Attractive pods, interesting. Actually, the machine is pretty cheap. Yeah, get that." Not really thinking of the total cost of getting that machine when you think of all those pods that you use over a year. Some people in Australia drink two or three mega coffees, double or triple espressos a day. And you know, that's a highly profitable part of the business. So, the less profitable part of the business was the machine. They disrupted that market. They thought that compromised on profit on that. Because people will buy more of the pod. And obviously, they have to provide the value with the taste. Anyway, that's a concept where you can reinforce a new business model change with pricing, and use pricing as a