69 business models of IT companies

With increasing competition, the diversity of business models of technological startups, which we tried to classify, also increases. We adapted the original selection of examples, which you can supplement by adding your options in the comments.

1. Advertising

• Yahoo: Banner advertising;
• Yandex: search advertising;
• Yandex: text advertising;
• Twitch.tv: Video Advertising
• 5by5.tv: Audio Advertising ;
• Twitter: Content Advertising;
• Outbrain: Recommendation Links;
• LinkedIn: Vacancy Advertising;
• ZocDoc: Formation of customer flow;
• TheWirecutter: Affiliate Programs;
• Craigslist: Ad Placement;
• Yelp: Brand Advertising;
• Yahoo: Email advertising;
• Criteo: Recommendations and retargeting;
• Foursquare: Location Advertising;
• MillionDollarHomepage: Unique (long-term) advertising projects.

2. eCommerce

• Zappos: Classic retail;
• Etsy: Marketplace;
• Threadless: Marketplace + crowdsourcing;
• Airbnb: Niche with excess supply (+ Uber:) ;
• Warbyparker: Vertically Integrated eCommerce;
• Lastminute.com: Stock Aggregator;
• Gilt Groupe: A selection of "offers of the day";
• Groupon: Collective Shopping;
• iTunes: Digital Goods (downloadable);
• Zynga: Virtual Goods (in-app);
• Coursera: Education;
• Sharespost: Commission for transactions;
• GrubHub: Commission for each order;
• eBay: auction model;
• Priceline: Reverse auction;
• SwapRight: Barter Exchange.

3. Periodicals

• StartupStack: Software On Demand (SaaS);
• Shopify: Service on Demand (Service aaS);
• Netflix: Content on Demand (Content aaS);
• Heroku: Platform on Demand (Platform aaS);
• Amazon Web Services: Infrastructure on aaS (Infrastructure aaS);
• Dropbox: SaaS for free;
• Wikipedia: Content for Volunteer Donations;
• Patreon: Recurring donations for rewards;
• BarkBox: Regular product selections;
• Amazon Prime: Special conditions for regular customers;
• Cloud66: Technical support on demand;
• The Information: Paid access to the full version of the content;
• Ricardo Bueno: Paid access to the mailing list.

4. Peer to Peer ( P2P )

• Lending Club: P2P lending;
• Etsy: P2P purchases;
• Mechanical Turk: P2P service.

5. Transactions

• PayPal: Trading Acquiring;
• CardSpring: APIs and development platforms;
• Paymentech: Acquiring processing;
• Dwolla: Bank transfers;
• Movenbank: Tracking operations and benchmarking of expenses / income;
• Simple: Issuing bank cards and tracking expenses / income;
• Amazon: fulfillment.

6. Data

• BlueKai: Work with user data (B2C);
• Duedil: Work with business data (B2B);
• YouGov: User Studies;
• Chango: A platform based on a recommendation system;
• Comscore: Benchmarking research;
• GLG: Market Research.

7. Mobile devices

• WhatsApp: application fee;
• Zynga Poker: In-app purchases;
• NYTimes: Content in a subscription app;
• Flurry: Mobile advertising;
• Postagram: Making physical products from digital.

8. Open Source

• Revsys: Consulting;
• Automattic: Software solutions and hosting;
• Ruby on Rails: Development Environment.

This classification cannot be considered complete and comprehensively illustrative, but it can serve as a good basis for your additions and discussion of the effectiveness of business models of technology startups.

In the light of this selection of business models, we advise you to pay attention to our series of publications comparing approaches to working on technology startups in Russia and the USA:

• Startups: List of all IIDF projects ;
• What startups are needed: List of directions for development;
• Popular startup: Practical recipes;
• Work in a startup: Ideas, routine and responsibility;
• Investments for a startup: Investor point of view;
• On the benefits of a “lean" approach to creating companies;
• The reasons for the success and failure of startups;