Unicornomy.com | Analyzing the World of Unicorns (StartUps)

How does Robinhood Make Money via Robinhood Business Model and How RobinHood makes Money by Arbitraging Privacy

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Unicorn Economy / 5 Comments

How does Robinhood Make Money | Robinhood Business Model | How does Robinhood App Make Money | How Robinhood Makes Money

Hope you are enjoying India rains as much as I am. Relief from this Summer! Well, to start off this Monsoon so How does Robinhood Make Money came to my mind because Markets are good here and I was wondering what can remove my trade costs? Here is something that will make you wonder, do such companies really exist? Every Industry has their share of the Bulls and the Bears! I am sure, you now would have understood what Robinhood is all about.

Yes!

Just another stock trading app! It’s a trading app/website in the USA that offers completely free trades, ZERO COMMISSIONS. Yes, you got that right, coming from the best-performing markets of Asia and being an avid investor, this is really interesting to see how Robinhood has carved out a business model from thin air and giving the stuff REALLY REALLY FREE. Let’s look at How does Robinhood Make Money and Robinhood Business Model. We will also be looking at How does Robinhood App Make Money along with deep diving into How Robinhood Makes Money from Non-Stock Market Investments.

About Robinhood, Founders, Funding, and Facts

The company was founded when two high-frequency traders for financial institutions in New York City realized that high-frequency traders and electronic trading firms pay effectively nothing to execute trades. This inspired them to bring this technology to the retail brokerage market with Robinhood, a commission-free stock brokerage. As of March 2018, it had nearly four million customers and it is no longer a stock trading platform, it’s a fully functional cryptocurrency trading platform as well.

Robinhood Founders: Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt

Robinhood Funding: Robinhood has raised a total of $600 million (appx) in venture capital funding. Robinhood received seed capital from investors including Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, IT Ventures, Social Leverage, and Elefund. Series A was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital; Howard Lindzon, co-founder of StockTwits and general partner at Social Leverage; Aaron Levie, founder of Box; Dave Morin, founder of Path; Jared Leto; Snoop Dogg; and Nas of QueensBridge Venture Partners. Series B funding in May 2015, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Existing investors Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Social Leverage joined the round, along with new investor Vaizra Investments. $1.3 billion valuation led by Yuri Milner from DST Global made the company jump to Unicorn status. As of May 2018, they are valued at $5.6 Billion.

Let’s now look at How does Robinhood Make Money and Robinhood Business Model.

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FinTech/Tech StartUps

How does Venmo Make Money and Understanding Venmo Business Model

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

How does Venmo Make Money and Understanding Venmo Business Model

Venmo is I feel a made up name from the Latin word Vendo (To Sell – Verb), However, it feels like a stolen match from Spiderman’s Best Villain’s name – Venom 🙂 ! Venmo is to US citizens what FaceBook + PayTM is to Indian Citizens (in terms of social payment features). Before moving on to How does Venmo Make Money or the Venmo Business Model, Let’s first have a look at Venmo Facts and Figures.

About Venmo, Funders, Founders and Facts

Founded in 2009, The idea was born when one of the founders forgot his wallet during a trip. The process of settling his debt was a considerable inconvenience, especially compared to the possibility of mobile phone–based transactions. Their original prototype used to send money through text messages, but they eventually transitioned from text messages to a smartphone app.

As of 2018, Venmo did about $12 Billion worth of transactions, and has become a Verb of Sort – Google Me, FaceBook Me and Venmo Me (Good league to be in).

Venmo Founders: Venmo was founded by Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, who met as freshman roommates at the University of Pennsylvania.

Venmo Funding: In May 2010, the company raised $1.2 million of seed money in a financing round led by RRE Ventures. In 2012, the company was acquired by Braintree for $26.2 million. In December 2013, PayPal acquired Braintree for $800 million.

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Chat/Cloud / Telephony/Gaming/Tech StartUps

How does Discord Make Money & Understanding Discord Business Model

Posted on May 7, 2018 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

How does Discord Make Money & Understanding Discord Business Model

About Discord, Funders, Founders, and Facts

Let’s be honest, Everyone loves playing games. I play World of Warcraft, God of War, Assassin Creed and what not Some people like my spouse play candy crush and toon blast and the rest who don’t play anything play mind (less) games in office 🙂 . Well, this was well understood by the team at Discord and they came up with a mind-blowing solution to connect the 2 Billion+ real gamers across the world.

Discord Founder: Jason Citron, currently leads Discord as their Founder and CEO. As of April 2018 the valuation of Discord according to a new round of funding is 1.65 Billion USD.

Discord Funding: Lead Investors including Index Funds and Greylock ventures have put in a total of $130 Million across 5 investment rounds including one seed round.

Discord is such a fierce competitor to Skype and other VoIP tools that I feel someday it would end up doing exactly same as what they do but Better (Discord for Non-Gamers), in fact, a small group of other artists is also using Discord to connect with like-minded individuals. Let’s look at the Discord Business Model and How does Discord Make Money.

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Ad-Tech/B2B/B2C/Chinese Unicorn StartUps/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Large Companies

Alibaba Business Model, Understanding How Alibaba Makes Money and How does Alibaba Work

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Unicorn Economy / 13 Comments

Alibaba Business Model, Understanding How Alibaba Makes Money and How does Alibaba Work and Alibaba Business Strategy, Alibaba Marketing Strategy, Books By Jack Ma

Hey Everyone, Hope you all had a wonderful year closing with 40% of your business trickling down in the last quarter and majority of incentives as well 🙂 ! I know, 80-20 principle works everywhere. Again, Apologies for not writing regularly, it’s just that, there is nothing interesting to write. I was looking for books by Jack Ma or on Alibaba and zeroed in on and just finished reading Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built and I am truly impressed, with what Jack Ma has achieved in just 15 years. I would recommend to go and get yourself a copy of the same. This book has got me interested in How Alibaba works, and here you go on the same. Grab a coffee to read this.

That’s Kim Kardashian btw, dressed as Jasmine from Arabian Nights Cartoon (Yeah I’m a huge Cartoon Verse Fan & Alibaba was the central cartoon character in the same) from where the Name Alibaba has been taken up. That’s why, well the below image :-).

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FinTech

How does Bitcoin make Money & Learning Bitcoin Business Model

Posted on January 14, 2018 by Unicorn Economy / 6 Comments

How does Bitcoin make Money, How does Cryptocurrency Work & Learning Bitcoin Business Model

Happy New Year Folks. Hope everyone’s New Year Bash was FFFFFFFFFFFFFing Awesome! 🙂 Many of you have emailed me to know more about Crypto, Blockchain and other stuff related to ICOs etc. So I thought of putting up a post which explains all of this in lay man’s terms. Read on to understand everything about Bitcoin Business Model and How does Bitcoin make Money.

About Bitcoin, CryptoCurrency, ICOs & Block Chain

All of this hullabaloo just for a ZERO FUNDAMENTAL value investment i.e. Bitcoin. Yes, I feel it that way about Bitcoin. But Blockchain, oh god it’s hot kind of reaction. I personally can think of 10 different ways in which blockchain can change the world for good. But the first application (well the famous one) is a currency which is tradeable and full of speculation. Since the supply is limited, people are buying in anticipation of increased demand (which in itself leads to furthermore limited supply) and thus the price goes up.

Let’s see what everything in relation to the crypto world means in this post.

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Ad-Tech/B2B/B2C/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Media and Entertainment

Ultimate Guide to Licensing Examples and Licensing Business Model

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 3 Comments

Licensing Examples and Understanding Licensing Business Model – Licensing vs Franchising, Types of Licensing, Brand Licensing Examples, Licensing Agreement

Licensing Business Model

Thank you for your emails, I really appreciate it. And Really Sorry For such a long break. I had a few things (like improving my reading speed from 300wpm to 700+wpm and in the dry run read 4 books 🙂 read this book and this one (in that sequence) if you also want an awesome reading speed) to take care off in the meanwhile thus MIA. I will compensate for this absence with this Monster Post (5,000+ words and counting)… Licensing Business Model.

Licensing business model is the favorite business model of the USA. As far as Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner are concerned it is their most favorite and second favorite deal to do respectively. In this licensing business model, the person (company) who invents/creates the product (called the licensor) doesn’t do anything but mint money (yes, if done effectively) and the person (company) who asks for the EXCLUSIVE rights (called the licensee) to market this product (and manufacture in most cases) does everything to make the product a hit.

In the licensing business model, As a monetary compensation for allowing the licensee to use their intellectual property (works fantastically well if patented), the licensor will receive a recurring income (called royalty) for every unit sold. The vehicle under the licensing business model through which the licensor acquires the right to use the IP, from the licensee is called a licensing agreement, and it is the basis for the licensing business model.

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B2B/B2C/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Food Tech & Hospitality / Travel/US Unicorn StartUps

How does UberEats Make Money, Analyzing UberEats Business Model & How does UberEats Work

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 3 Comments

How does UberEats Make Money, Analyzing UberEats Business Model & How does UberEats Work

About UberEats, Founders, Funders and Facts

I am sure you guys have already read my post about Uber Business Model & How does Uber Make Money. If not, please do read because that post is the basis for this post.

I was recently reading an interesting book about How Killer Companies of Silicon Valley are Changing Tech LandScapes – The Upstarts and was intrigued by its movie like storyline, there I got to know about various things that tech companies are doing things differently there as compared to Asia. Thus this post is about Uber’s new venture into FoodTech and Delivery, called Uber Eats, and they just have launched it across many places where Uber is already present. I must say that with Uber’s limitless vehicles running on the road 24×7 and with no added cost of owning/hiring vehicle owners, Uber will become the undisputed king of food delivery.

UberEats Founders: UberEats is a subsidiary of Uber Inc. The parent company that owns the ride-hailing app Uber. Thus the founding team etc. remains the same.

UberEats Funding: UberEats is funded by Uber Inc. (parent company).

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B2C/Crowd Funding/Tech StartUps/US StartUps

How does KickStarter Make Money – KickStarter Business Model – How does KickStarter Work

Posted on August 18, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

How does KickStarter Make Money, KickStarter Business Model, How does KickStarter Work

About KickStarter, Founders, Funders and Facts

Kickstarter was the rage when it came out, people wanted to showcase their projects raise (free) money and be done with it after delivering the projects (and make some money in the bargain).

It helps artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality. To date, tens of thousands of creative projects — big and small — have come to life with the support of the Kickstarter community.

KickStarter Founders: Kickstarter launched on April 28, 2009, by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. The company is based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

KickStarter Funding: Kickstarter raised $10 million funding from backers including NYC-based venture firm Union Square Ventures and angel investors such as Jack Dorsey, Zach Klein and Caterina Fake.

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Indian Unicorn StartUps/Large Companies/Non Tech

Begging in India, Child & Rich Beggars in India – A $1.5 Billion Industry

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 10 Comments

Begging in India, Child Beggars in India & Rich Beggars in India

I always say India is a land of opportunities!

An Opportunity so vast, that it’s hard to capture by a single player all along.

That is the reason that there are at least ten startups in the very same segment doing the same thing but operating in different cities and getting funded then biting the dust!

Beggars in India are no different. The only difference being they do their job religiously and without any investment and are extremely profitable.

P.S After I had written my last controversial post on Depression, I was thrashed & praised for being biased, but I always rely on numbers and facts, nothing else, this piece is also on the same lines and the views again, are entirely mine. 🙂

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B2C/Large Companies/US Unicorn StartUps

WholeFoods Business Model, Analyzing Whole Foods Stock & How does it Make Money

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

Whole Foods Stock, Analyzing WholeFoods Business Model & How does WholeFoods Make Money

Well everyone knows what Amazon is! It needs no explanation. What needs an explanation is why a ZERO INVENTORY E-RETAIL company will buy out (in all cash) a 100% inventory driven PHYSICAL-RETAIL company like Whole Foods Inc.

For your surprise, I was shocked to read this as well. I have examined the terms of the deal as well as WholeFoods Business Model and Whole Foods Stock performance, read on to find out about the real reason why Amazon bought over Whole Foods.

About WholeFoods, Founder, Stock and Facts

Whole Foods Market Inc. is an American supermarket chain exclusively retailing (online-offline) food items without any sort of artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, sweeteners, and fats.

Well, that’s interesting! A Whole Business model around Whole Foods only, who could’ve thought this business also has the potential to do over $10 Billion a year in Revenues!

It is the United States’ first certified organic grocer i.e organic integrity of the products from the time they reach stores until they are placed in a shopping cart is maintained without the use of artificial chemicals/agents.

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