A Business Model for the 21st Century!

Reading about how Twitter survived Facebook – Got to know of a business concept!

Let’s speak about A Business Model for the 21st Century!

Community-as-a-Service:

We have seen software developers in the world is building their own SaaS (software-as-a-service) and get paid for access to the software. In this world, people now not only want to pay for ongoing access to the software but also ongoing access to other people. We individuals are interconnected, is it any surprise that people put a premium on access to networking and learning experiences? No!

People now look for the best way to attain those experiences reliably and at a low cost!!

 

Community-as-a-service is the phenomenon where access to a group of people is valuable enough that it can be considered a marketable product. An old example is membership fees for country clubs for stock market tips and other deals etc.

 

Well, country clubs were difficult to be reached by many, hence, the internet and social media have revolutionized the concept and have given affordable yet valuable connections.

 

Let’s understand the concept better!

There are two elements –

1.      The content creator for which the community gathers

2.     Community which gathers for content but stays for several reasons

Content creators 

• Sharing their knowledge and experience
• Enabling and stimulating peer-to-peer sharing within the group.

In return, they get to monetize their position within the community (paid content books, courses, or anything else they publish). There are business models that involve subscriptions and tipping. (Drop any of the examples of such business models that comes to your mind)

Community members

1. Learning from the content creator
2. Learning from the community
3. Building your network

Assume you are any community member, which of the above is a more important reason for you to join any community from above 1,2,3 please post in the comments section your opinion

Pitfalls: In reality, putting a community together doesn’t automatically make money. Unless you have a plan in place for who you want in the community and how to delineate between free and paid content.

Biggest risk: Relying on a single platform and its unpredictable algorithm. Any platform can lose its popularity, stifle your content, or even close your account with no notice or warning. Diversifying across platforms has proven to be a prudent move for many content creators. Also being able to export your community and shift it across platforms, perhaps using blockchain-like technology, has been proposed as a long-term solution to platform risk.

 

Also, post comments in relation to innovative ideas that come to you when you think of such a concept!