Business Model Canvas - Pinterest

Pinterest is a very unique property because it has been valuated as a $5 billion company without having any significant revenues generated.  It has acquired hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists, which is a testament to their confidence in Pinterest's potential to earn revenue.

There are a plethora of ways that Pinterest can earn revenue; the most obvious being in advertising.  The company has recently made an effort to generate revenue by offering "promoted pins" of corporations who have been dying to get a chance to advertise to this unique scrapbooking community.  I believe that the company will eventually offer regular users a way to advertise their products on the site, similar to what Facebook has done.

Pinterest is a service-based business and this will not change unless it plans to launch an actual product.  Before, the company's main focus was on its users but now it has to make sure that it is listening to its advertisers needs' as well.  This may be a slight shift in thinking for management but overall, its not very different than what they were doing previously.  I would imagine that the layout of the website will not be changing (or changing much), so the actual platform shouldn't be a stumbling block for the company either.

Week 3 - "The Origins of Social Media", "The Death of Segmentation" & Seth Godin's Ted Talk

This week I read, “The Origins of Social Media” in The New Influencers and “The Death of Segmentation: IBM VP talks segments of one consumer”.  The concept behind “The Origins of Social Media” is that blogs have given way for regular people to have voices, that, in the past were either not possible or not respected (by companies).  The article mentions how companies have to be prepared for both the positives and negatives that accompany social media; consumers have the immediate ability to either praise or trash your company/product.  This change is going to take place regardless of whether companies like it or not but its best to be proactive in this type of a situation rather than reactive.

In “The Death of Segmentation: IBN VP talks segments of one consumer”, Ginni Rometty talks about how marketers have to adapt to a new way of thinking because dividing customers into segments will no longer work due to the emergence of “big data”.  She argues that because of the influx of “big data”, customers will need to be treated as individuals rather than as part of a segment.  My thoughts on this are that I am inclined to agree with Rometty.  As more and more data becomes available, businesses will have no choice but to treat their customers as individuals.  There will be too much data available to point to each specific customer’s needs vs. taking them as a whole with their industry or segment as was done in the past.

I also watch Seth Godin’s Ted Talk on “How to Get Your Ideas Spread”.  I loved “The Idea Virus” so I enjoyed watching this video the most out of all this week’s material.  What resonated with me most was towards the end when he got really specific about how to get ideas to spread - make sure you have something remarkable and focus on those who are interested in what you’re selling or talking about, or your “otaku.  This was interesting because it was something that I felt intuitively but to hear Seth explicitly say it let me know that I am on the right path.

I am working with a recording artist who recently released his first EP.  As a promotional tool, we have been offering reloadable MP3 players with his music pre-loaded.  We have gotten excellent feedback on the concept and idea and I think that it is safe to say that we have identified our something “remarkable”.  Our next step is to identify our otaku.  This is something that we are currently working on but, takes time to achieve.  I do think, however, that I learned a while ago to only focus on those that are interested in what we have to offer.  I was talking to my boyfriend about the EP recently and he was telling me how there were two songs on it that he doesn’t like.  I told him that I was ok with that because those songs weren’t meant for him.  His argument was that music should be universal and I shouldn’t be grouping off certain songs for certain individuals.  I do agree that music is universal but my grouping was not specific to him, as a person, it was simply to say that if you don’t like a particular song, then it was not made for you, and I feel that this speaks to Seth’s Otaku concept.

 "South Side" EP MP3 Player - Available for sale @ JukeRelated.com

I also read the HBR article, “Community Relations 2.0”.  I think this article picks up where “The Origins of Social Media” left off.  What I liked most about it was the outline on page 7 that basically mandates how companies should utilize their social media team.  I liked it because it gave real steps and instructions on how they should operate and what things to be on the lookout for.

I tried to listen to the Gil Frisbie and Frank podcast on “The Long Tail", but it didn’t capture my interest.  I was familiar with the concept because it was covered in my undergrad Strategic Management course so I decided to read Chapter 1 of “The Long Tail” to refresh my memory.  It’s easy to see why so many brick and mortar book and music stores have gone out of business.  They can’t compete with online retailers who are capturing a significant portion of their revenue from sales that brick and mortar locations don’t have.  It would be impossible for an actual store to house thousands and thousands of CDs that might not be of interest to people in a certain locale.

Week 2 - "Crowdsourcing" & "How to Build Your Start-Up without Building Code"

This week, I read “How to Build Your Start-up Without Building Code”, which I found interesting because I recently setup my own website and I am clueless about using HTML code.  I built my website using Wix, which I found to be very user-friendly.  I did run into a couple of limitations with regards to aesthetics that I wanted to change but couldn’t such as customizing the web addresses of my subpages or locking side panels in place without creating an entire backdrop.  Overall, I am still pleased with the way that my site came out but I often wonder, how much more of what I wanted could have been done with code and how much time that would have taken to design my entire site that way.  However, I also like the fact that I can change my site at any time vs. having to work with a programmer whenever I want to make changes.

I also read “The Dawn of the Human Network” from Crowdsourcing and watched the blogtv’s “Crowdsourcing Evolution”.  The concept of crowdsourcing was something that I had previously misunderstood and mistook for “crowdfunding”.  It was very interesting to learn what crowdsourcing really is and to gain more information about the concept behind it.  This is also something that I look forward to incorporating into my own business in the future.  Since we don’t have a problem to solve in the traditional sense, this will be a challenge that I’m looking forward to thinking through along with other ways to engage visitors of JukeRelated.com.

The Camtasia video on Information Liquidity didn’t peak my interest as much as the other material in the class.  I found it to be an alternative way to look at business models, but I like the way that the “Business Model Generation” book classifies them better.  The video on “The Internet before Search Engines” was cool because my earliest memory of the internet was getting AOL in 1997; I never knew that there was internet before that. I couldn’t really understand how it worked because it seemed like it had to link to other institutions that had the internet so I’m guessing that the access to data and information was just limited because there were no search engines then.  It actually reminded me of the first computer at my grandmother’s house that used MS-DOS.  Very cool to look back and see how far we have come with technology.

Business Model Canvas - Juke Related Entertainment

Juke Related Entertainment serves as a management, marketing and production company.  The company is driven mainly by its talent and people, however, this will shift slightly as the company has recently started manufacturing promotional products for its artists.

Although the customer segment for Juke Related is mass market, there is a specific demographic that the company attracts, which are music and dance enthusiasts.  The company is currently focusing on its fan base by creating high quality entertainment and developing its reputation.  For Juke Related to be successful, it will have to be a brand of status that epitomizes what Juke culture is.

The channels that we use are mainly related to social media and we have measures in place to get feedback from our market.  (Items in italics are things that I believe will be a factor in the future, but is not something that we are currently doing.)  In addition to marketing on the internet, Juke Related does use its own talent to introduce people to the company’s offerings, similar to a traditional “sales” role.

Juke Related is primarily a service oriented business so financially, there is not a lot of overhead that we incur.  At this time, there are no fixed costs so all expenses incurred are based solely on revenues. The company, however, has recently started selling products - MP3 Players and CDs.  This has caused a shift in dynamics for the company and now there are production costs that are incurred.  The best way to augment this is to create economies of scale partnerships to help the company purchase materials in bulk.  The company has also decided to start offering to produce MP3 players for other artists, individuals and companies who have content that they want to provide in a unique way.  This will help the company bring in additional revenue based on the profit from the MP3 players.

Operationally, the mass production of MP3 players will require everyone in the company to pitch in to help.  Currently, I am the only person producing the MP3 players but as the volume increases, this will not suffice.  By pulling in other members of the company, this will generate an additional line of revenue for them, while also making a profit by offering our product to others.

Customer relationships vary depending on which service or product the customer is purchasing.  Items purchased on JukeRelated.com are self-service, however, personal assistance may be necessary if the customer has any questions or issues.  For services that we offer i.e. live performances or appearances, this requires much more personal assistance to ensure that our customer’s specific needs are met.

Our major key resources are our talent, who provide us with content, and our vendors.  Without either, we would not have any product to produce or market.  Moving forward, it will be vitally important to reduce overhead costs by ordering more products either due to increased demand or partnering with other companies/organizations for orders.  Our main key partners are those who can help us spread our message further i.e. DJs, radio personalities, record companies, etc.  Cultivating these relationships early on, will pay great dividends later on when the company has relationships that it can rely upon to make things happen when needed.