The missing business model
October 19th, 2006
This is a slight continuation on Gareth’s earlier post on monetisation.
I happened to be reading a post by Demian at PHP Kitchen about a recent interview with Paul Graham.
Paul makes the point that you have to have a business model “eventually”. He goes on to say that it is far more important to build something popular and then come up with a business model first.
Wow well that sums up the current thinking in the industry. I can certainly see how the likes of Google and some others have created a very succesful business doing something popular. I’m just gobsmacked that people don’t have some sort of half workable business model up front. How many of these popular sites have fallen by the way side?
Perhaps I just don’t get it and my thinking needs to change. I’ll continue trying to figure this crazy industry out.
One comment on “The missing business model”
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The business model, that is very true, so so so true, but I think it’s the hardest part to come up with, at least the a model that ‘would’ work.
I think, this might be a repetition of some sort, but I think, the web and web ’services’ have to be looked like just like any other ‘bricks & mortar’ business, albeit with a bit of softness to them. I think, the goal should be to make your consumer (and/or user) feel that they have something tangible by paying for your service (or clicking through it).
I am culprit of that, I still refuse to pay for flickr, even though I know what the benefits are, which are not really tangible, expect that fact that I am lazy to build my own app.
Alas, lately I have concluded that the web business model, needs to have an ‘offline’ attachment to it. As in, one should be able to generate revenue outside of the ‘web’, but using the web to gain the ability to generate that revenue (profit).
This conclusion is still marinating in my head.
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