Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Monetizing A Startup

Lincoln on U.S. one centImage via WikipediaI am a huge fan of the freemium model. Keep the basic product free, get lots and lots of deeply engaged users, and monetization will happen. But that is not the only way. Some great services charge right away. Whatever floats your boat. You can delay making money, but not forever. Shorter the delay, better it is.

How To Monetize Your Social Web Startup there really is no secret sauce to making money on the social web: you’re either selling ads or selling a product. ..... While it’s possible to generate revenue through a number of models, there are really only a few core monetization models. ..... Since ownership of mass distribution channels is becoming fragmented, advertisers are looking for targeted audiences that are most likely to purchase their product. ...... Whether it’s an information product or a physical good, there are massive opportunities to generate revenue from selling things. ..... Brand advocacy in the world of social media is something that has many marketers drooling but rather than spending all your time monitoring the conversation, try developing a high quality product or service. .... many internet entrepreneurs pretend as though there is a secret monetization model that they’ll release in the near future. There isn’t one.

New York Times: Ping: Using ‘Free’ to Turn a Profit Fred Wilson, the New York venture capitalist, codified this model and popularized a term for it: freemium. ..... Evernote, of course, is free. That’s important because the company, which does no advertising, needs to acquire customers as cheaply as possible. “Our product is our marketing,” Mr. Libin says. ..... “Free is not a loss leader,” he says. “If we can get a small percentage of users to pay we start to make money.”


Quora: What are other ways of monetizing your startup besides ads?

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