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

How does DuoLingo make Money & Understanding DuoLingo Business Model

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 6 Comments

Evaluating DuoLingo Business Model & How does DuoLingo make Money – UE Analysis

DuoLingo is one of my favorite apps on the phone. I don’t have many apps, but I have DuoLingo (that says it enough)! It is based on one of the foremost principles that I stand by through, Free Education for All! No one should have to pay for any basic level education and DuoLingo Business Model just nails it right through the chest with this principle.

About DuoLingo, Funders, Founders and Facts

Duolingo is a free platform that includes a language-learning website and app, as well as a digital language proficiency assessment exam. Duolingo offers all its language courses free of charge. As of 2016, the website and app offer language courses across 23 languages. The app is available on iOS, Android and Windows 8 and 10 platforms with about 200 million registered users across the world.

DuoLingo Founders: Luis von Ahn (he is damn famous and irritating at the same time – read more below about him) and Severin Hacker (Luis’s student).

DuoLingo Funding: Close to about $80 Million in multiple tranches from Union Square Ventures, Ashton Kutcher’s firm, A-Grade Investments and Kleiner Caufield & Byers and the last Series D round of investment led by Google Capital.

Continue reading →

B2B/B2C/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Large Companies

How does eBay make Money & Understanding eBay Business Model

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

How does eBay make Money & Understanding eBay Business Model – Unicorn Economy Analysis

eBay Business Model is the base of many known business model examples that we see today. It is one of the first marketplaces to be born on the face of planet earth and probably it will be one of the first (big ones) to be wiped off as well. How does eBay make money even though it has lost its sheen from its yesteryears when it used to command the major market share in revenue terms as well as mind share terms. Even Flipkart’s position is better these days since eBay’s India unit is being merged with Flipkart.

P.S. I know I haven’t been regular with posts 🙂 Now on you will get to read these every day at 9:00 PM ! Cheers and Stay Tuned !

About eBay, Funders, Founders and Facts

eBay Inc. is a MNC focussing on online consumer-to-consumer (c2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. It is headquartered in San Jose, California and became one of the surviving stories of the dot-com bubble. Today it is a multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 30 countries.

The company manages eBay.com (and other regional TLDs), an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. In addition to its auction-style sales, the website has since expanded to include “Buy It Now” shopping; online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds); online event ticket trading (via StubHub); and other services. It previously offered online money transfers (via PayPal), which was then spun off from the main business sometime in 2015.

eBay Founders: eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar (does this sound familiar?? ) – The same person whose wealth is now being managed by Omidyar Network VC Fund. BTW when eBay listed eBay Business model made Pierre Omidyar and his first employee both turned immediate Billionaires ($4 Billion+ Wealth).

eBay Funding: The company received $6.7 million (Yes, Everyone else please bow your heads in shame for such a stupid eBay Business Model of making money 🙂 ) in funding from venture capital fund Benchmark Capital. From there it went on to be listed on NYSE (within first 3 years of operation).

Continue reading →

Ad-Tech/B2B/Classifieds/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Food Tech & Hospitality / Travel/Large Companies

How does TripAdvisor make Money from TripAdvisor Business Model

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 12 Comments

How does TripAdvisor make Money from TripAdvisor Business Model

Well, Today Unicornomy is 1-Year-old 😀 ! Enjoy the Valentine’s Day with this particular post.

TripAdvisor Inc. is a US based travel company providing user-generated reviews of travel-related content.

Yeah! This is what everyone knows about already!

What most of you might not know is that it is a part of Expedia Group (The Largest OTA in the world), it is a Reverse Listed Entity (Earlier a Part of Listed Expedia Group and then Spun off from the parent and then offered on the market).

One more thing you guys should know about, TripAdisor is owned by IAC (InterActiveCorp) – Which is one of the pioneers in Internet-based Businesses (Tinder) and a Behemoth in content backed companies.

TripAdvisor Market Capitalization: $4 Billion as of 2017 Feb

TripAdvisor Founder: Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinert started TripAdvisor in 2000.

Continue reading →

B2C/E-Commerce / Marketplace / Aggregators/Health & Beauty/HealthCare/US StartUps

ClassPass Business Model & Understanding How does ClassPass Work

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Unicorn Economy / 4 Comments

ClassPass Business Model & Understanding How does ClassPass Work

About ClassPass, Founder, Funder and Facts

Happy New Year People! Well 2016 ended on an awesome note for Uniconomy. UE was voted as one of top 100 startup blogs in the world (at #50).

Yes, World!

We were featured amongst the likes of TechCrunch and all… Thanks to FeedSpot Team for the honor. Well I haven’t been much regular here and I plan to be more regular – will move to a better hosting (VPS) and add a subscribe button for you guys + post more interesting stuff. Let’s move on to ClassPass Business Model.

ClassPass is a half unicorn fitness aggregator startup based in USA & offers a monthly subscription service to get access to programs of fitness classes in America, Canada, Australia and UK.

ClassPass Founders: ClassPass is founded by Payal Kadakia, Mary Biggins & Sanjeev Sanghavi, he left in January 2014.

ClassPass Funding: $84 Million in 5 rounds from 29 Investors which include – GV, General Catalyst Partners, Thrive Capital, Acequia Capital (Acecap), Fritz Lanman,Hank Vigil.

ClassPass Valuation: Last round valuation at $500 million.

Continue reading →

Ad-Tech/B2C/Social Network/Tech StartUps/US Unicorn StartUps

How does Pinterest Make Money from Pinterest Business Model

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 2 Comments

How does Pinterest Make Money from Pinterest Business Model

About Pinterest, Founder, Funder and Facts

Pinterest is well, I have no clue, why it exists. All the more I don’t understand why do people need Pinterest – Boards – and other images storing solution when you can do it all with your smartphone. I have never used Pinterest as a social tool, neither will I ever.

I have put up a script that automates posting across networks including this one. People use pinterest for weird things – like pinning boots images, cat pictures and even pooping positions. It is a social network business model example which gives people options to pin various images from brands and other users to their boards (pinboard) and view it later (which they never do).

Let’s understand in detail the pinterest business model and see how does pinterest make money.

Continue reading →

B2C/Health & Beauty/US Unicorn StartUps

Dollar Shave Club Business Model & How does it make Money

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 4 Comments

Dollar Shave Club Business Model & How does it make Money – Unicornomy

About Dollar Shave Club, Founders, Funders and Facts

Dollar Shave Club is one business model example which is what I personally call as a Scavenger Business Model i.e. some business that is typically founded and grown to infiltrate a larger competitors market share and ultimately be sold to some larger company that can actually make sense out it. Unilever recently did prove this theory correct by buying out Dollar Shave Club (DSC as it is popularly called as) at $1 Billion i.e. 6 times its discounted annual revenue forecast.

Let’s see Dollar Shave Club Business Model now.

Continue reading →

B2C/Large Companies

Zara Business Model & Understanding Zara Business Strategy

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 9 Comments

Zara Business Model & Understanding Zara Business Strategy – UE

About Zara, Founders and Facts

Zara is wrongly pronounced by every one. Well this is what seems to be a rage these days in the up-market society of Mumbai. That led me to wonder how Zara’s business model compares that of traditional retailers of fashion accessories and thus this post and I must say this is one of the finest business models I have seen recently for a completely offline company and yeah I was bored of writing about stupid internet business model examples.

Business model of Zara is impeccable in terms of design to outlet efficiency which leads to their immense cost savings and Zara’s business strategy in terms of positioning themselves as a premium brand is also helping them gain significant traction with the middle class mall buyers of the country. Let’s see business model of Zara in detail.

Continue reading →

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

AirBnB Business Model and How does AirBnB make Money

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 3 Comments

AirBnB Business Model & How does AirBnB make Money – Unicornomy

About AirBnB, Funders, Founders and Facts

AirBnB is one of those Decacorns ($10 Billion+ Valuation Companies) that is there to stay, unlike our other favorites like Theranos.

Started out as Air Bed and BreakFast (Air – B and B), primarily hinting towards cheaper modes of stay while travelling out of home. It is a peer-to-peer online marketplace and homestay network which enables people to list or rent short-term stay in residential properties. It is that type of the sharing economy business model examples which has done pretty well despite the numerous revenue leakages that this model is prone to and they have done fantastically well to limit the leakage by eliminating the leakage catalyst i.e. charging both the parties equally high (more on this, down).

Continue reading →

Uncategorized

80 20 Rule – Applying Pareto Principle Correctly to Business

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

80 20 Rule – How to apply Pareto Principle correctly every where – UE

About 80 20 Rule, Founder Pareto, Principle Applications

I was recently reading the book, The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less (not because it looks like some self help crap but serious applications of the 80 20 Rule), it is then I stumbled upon the fact that all of this while we have been using this principle horrendously wrong. The biggest stupidity being people saying that 80 and 20 have to add up to 100 – No, Hell No! 80 20 Rule does not say that and nor does Vilfredo Pareto the founder of the Pareto Principle, it just mentions the distribution of the odds in favor and against.

Let’s read on for more clarity on this.

Continue reading →

FinTech/Large Companies/Non Tech

Structured Settlement Annuity Companies’s Business Model

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Unicorn Economy / 0 Comment

Structured Settlement Annuity Companies Business Model – Unicornomy

Structured Settlement Annuity Companies USA

About Structured Settlement Annuity

Something different this time.. Same old, stupid, no money, no honey business model examples bore me a lot.

So I thought why not analyze some business model that is close to my heart – Time Discounting! This is also called as “Factoring”.

Time / Bill Discounting is a Business model that discounts the value of future cash flows and gives out a lump sump at today’s value of money.

This is a big business model in the US and Japan where you buy out the structured settlement of the plaintiff and give them a lump sum in today’s value.

Let’s look at this in detail.

Continue reading →