Eric von Hippel (2005) delivered an example for inter-personal collaboration developing goods mainly on the own resources of the group involved in the absence of a platform or manufacturer.  These “User Innovation Networks” as von Hippel calls them can cope with complex, knowledge-based goods like software as well as with physical goods if they can integrate the necessary infrastructure for production into their networks.

For instance, the kite-surfing industry has been mainly developed by customers changing the rules of industrial creation of value and forming a 100-million-dollar industry today. Because of the high specificity and specialists’ knowledge needed to produce kite-sails, not many people possessed the capabilities to develop good sails. These customer developers built only because of their personal needs a community sharing their latest blueprints with each other and continued on developing the kite-sails designed by others. By acting that way, value in networks could have been generated when the blueprints are subsequently manufactured by external sail makers who usually all are able to work with open interfaces and standards like CAD.