Business Models

Mozilla is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to creating an open and accessible internet. The organization is best known for its web browser, Firefox, which is used by millions of people worldwide. Mozilla's commitment to an open and accessible internet has helped shape the way we use the internet today. In this article, we will take a closer look at Mozilla, its history, business model, revenue, and how it has become the organization that it is today. History: Mozilla was founded in 1998 as an open-source community dedicated to developing the Netscape Navigator web browser. The project was led by Jamie...

In today's digital age, online transactions have become a vital part of daily life. Whether it is paying for your groceries or booking a flight, most transactions are carried out digitally. To facilitate these transactions, there are several payment processors in the market, but one that has made a significant impact is Stripe. Stripe is a payment processing company that has revolutionized the payment industry with its innovative approach. In this article, we will delve into Stripe's business model, revenue, and how it has become one of the most successful companies in the world. Introduction to Stripe: Stripe was founded in...

TikTok changed the social landscape in more ways than one. Firstly, TikTok holds the record for being the fastest-growing social media platform ever. Launched in 2016, the app attracted over 3 billion downloads and captured one-third of all social media users in a short span of fewer than four years. To put TikTok's growth into context, it took Facebook & Instagram almost a decade for the same. Secondly, TikTok is one of the rare top social media platforms to emerge out of China. Before it came into the picture, all major social media companies were born in the US. Thirdly,...

In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for a then-unprecedented $1billion. At the time of the acquisition, Instagram was growing fast, but it had only 25 million registered users — minuscule compared to Facebook's hundreds of million users. To top it off, Instagram was not bringing in any revenue; it was being run by 13 employees and was only two years old. Before Facebook closed the deal, even Twitter tried its hand at courting Instagram. But Instagram's founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, decided to go ahead with Facebook because other than the massive sum of money, Mark Zukurberg dangled the carrot of independence. If...

McDonald's is ubiquitous. No matter which country or major city you go to, you are bound to find a McDonald's outlet. As of 2020, the company was operating 40,031 outlets worldwide and held the title of 'The World's Largest Restaurant Company'. But what if, I told you, McDonald's is a real estate empire hiding under the guise of a fast-food chain?  In its 2021 Financial Report, the company reported 41.9 billion dollars worth of assets in property & equipment before accounting for depreciation, making it the 6th largest public real estate company in the world even if we were to deduct the...

In the early days of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman did something he advises all startup founders to do; he went around and discussed the idea of LinkedIn with all the smart people in his network. But when he shared the idea of LinkedIn in his network, 2/3 or more thought Reid was nuts.  And to be clear, Reid’s network included some of the most influential people in Silicon Valley at the time because before starting LinkedIn; Reid was the executive vice president of Paypal, meaning he was a member of what is popularly known as the Paypal mafia. Most of Reid’s smart friends...

In November 2006, almost two years after its founding in February 2005, Google acquired YouTube for a then-hefty price of $1.65 billion.  In the 2021 annual report, Google reported that YouTube generated $28.8 billion from advertisements alone in 2021 (Youtube generates revenue through other income streams as well, which we will discuss below), contributing 11.19% to Google’s total 2021 revenue.  Youtube has, undoubtedly, been one of the most remarkable acquisitions in the history of tech. It is the second most popular website in the world after Google. Source: Similar Web  But when it comes to engagement metrics like avg visit duration, pages per visit...

12 years since being founded in 2009, Grammarly has more than 30 Million daily active users, over 10 Million downloads of its chrome extension, and 50,000+ professional and enterprise clients. And all this for a company that did not raise its first round of funding worth $110 Million until its eighth year of operation. Now, I'm not by any means trying to imply that Grammarly was bootstrapped for the initial 8 years of the startup’s journey — the founders did make some money from selling their first startup (nobody knows how much but more on that later), which was used to self-fund the...

Among a sea of MOOC giants like Udemy, Udacity & Coursera, MasterClass stands out as an outlier. And the differentiation between these two sets of MOOC companies is mainly due to the following reasons:  1. Unlike Udemy, Udacity & Coursera, which allow thousands of individuals and institutions, basically almost anyone, to offer courses through their platform, MasterClass only features courses from a small number of world-class masters.  2. While Udemy, Udacity & Coursera have a massive library of courses featuring thousands & lakhs of courses, MasterClass only has close to 150+ classes. MasterClass is a business case study worth studying because...

Chess.com has insane website usage and app download metrics.  According to Similar Web, Chess.com has a global rank of 238 and got 135 million visits in June 2021 at a bounce rate as low as 17.7%, with people visiting 7.7 pages per visit at an average visit duration of 16.37 minutes.  Chess.com's android app has 10 million plus installs. It is impossible to know the iPhone app install numbers because Apple does not publicly disclose them, but Chess.com is arguably the top chess app among Apple loyalists.  When I analyzed Chess.com's web competition, I discovered that its main competitor lags way behind it....