More Found Business Models

By Jake • December 6th, 2010 • 4 Comments

Recent news has uncovered some other relatively new models.

If you read here, you’ll know I’m a fan of found business models, which I loosely define as models that would make you scratch your head or laugh if someone pitched them to you.

The former is staggering. Angry Birds has passed five million downloads, and the recent release of the Angry Birds Seasons title to Android under the same ad-supported model is sure to bolster that number.

Incidentally, the advent calendar motif for the Seasons game’s levels is a good idea.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of coin for mobile ads is outstanding. Mobile ads aren’t new, but this type of success is, at least from what I’ve read.

The latter is equally staggering. The nugget is that Groupon is generating $2 billion in annual revenue, half of which is returned to the merchants. This is a lot of money for a relatively new business model.

I had to read this a few times because, for some reason, they use “run-rate” to describe revenues, which is highly confusing. Did someone change the definition of run-rate, a.k.a. burn rate, to mean the opposite?

Anyway, Groupon’s model is more innovative than Rovio’s, but both are interesting to me.

Find the comments.


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  • http://twitter.com/syd_oracle Gary Myers

    The use of run rate seems to fit with “http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/runrate.asp”. Burn rate appears to be more of a special class of run rate when the firm is actually losing money rather than making money. Such a high proportion of dot coms didn’t or don’t make (enough) money that it seems a bit weird when one does.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Ah, got it. This puts the math in fuzzy territory. All Things D initially said $500 million annually, then adjusted up to $2 billion. I wonder if that extrapolated run rate was further extrapolated.

    Anyway, even annual revenue of $500 million, $250 million after paying out the local merchants, is pretty big.

  • http://www.garry.to joel garry

    When found business models affect entire countries: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_50/b4207048626069.htm

    Next they will angrily take over Facebook: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/36815/angry-birds-sequel-pigs-pov

    This is all very unstable, capricious stuff. Not unlike building economies on bubbles, but less predictable.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Nokia is a rather sad story, although they are so critical to other parts of the world. I hope they embrace Android and stay afloat.

    I saw that the sequel to Angry Birds might be from the pigs’ viewpoint, which sounds fun. I can only imagine the horror of social obligations Angry Birds for Facebook would foist on me.

    I <3 the line "not unlike building economies on bubbles, but less predictable" funny stuff ;)