Although some companies strike it rich by giving it out a product for free, we chose a business model with a higher chance of consistently putting food in our bellies. Don’t get me wrong, we’re all for attracting gobs of users and a multi-million dollar buyout, but until that happens, we’ll at least get paid for doing what we love. So, if you also like food and are looking to make a little cash (before selling to Google of course), here are some business model resources.

  • Fred Wilson Describes the Benefits of the “Freemium” Plan - Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.

  • Business Models on the Web - A thorough review of potential business models including brokerage, advertising, Infomediary, merchant, manufacturer, affiliate, community, subscription, and utility.

  • Beyond Adsense: A Business Model - A checklist of the various business models available to the developers of live web applications and services.

  • Business Models - This essay is dedicated to Web2.0 and has a section dedicated to business models and how they suffer from a lack of defined revenue opportunities.

  • wtf2.0 - “The worst thing about all the Web 2.0 hype is the complete loss of business perspective. There’s a few companies out there that seem to get it but just about every other new website I’ve seen lately is nothing but features parading as businesses. Sure, these guys get to be entered in the “Flip It Quick Acquisition Lottery”, but beyond that, none seem to be creating anything of any real value.”

One business model that isn’t spoken about too often in is enterprise sales. Kevin recently pointed me to an article from Inc. Magazine on the 500 fastest growing private companies, and the software businesses on the list often target bigger businesses and the government. It’s definitely a tougher market to get into, but the rewards could be worth it.

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Chris Campbell

Business Model Roundup by Chris Campbell

This entry was posted 4 years ago and was filed under Notebooks.
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· 2 Comments! ·

  1. Rob · 4 years ago

    Chris, you missed the “underpants gnomes” business model from South Park. It is especially popular these days.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes

  2. Chris Campbell · 4 years ago

    Ah, how could I forget the “underpants gnomes” business model! I guess if you read the WTF2.0 article, you can get the pros and cons of going the underpants gnome route.