Radicals and Visionaries: Chris Anderson vs. 37Signals
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Mint does it well because they have an incredibly focused and niche market. If you are on their site, you are trying to be financially responsible, and your bank/debit/credit are all fundamentally attached to your account. Google did it well because they knew there was a huge well of oil waiting for them, they simply had to tap it right. Users often go to Google/search engines with the 'intent to buy', and this is where Facebook and Twitter fall short. It is consequentially rare that I am scouring my friends'/followers' pages on social networks with any intent to spend money.
No one is right about everything, all the time, in all circumstances. This is why we even have business schools. You learn about a ton of options in a ton of situations and your job as a manager is to make the best call you can and try to execute to a good result.
Why would picking a business model be any different than deciding what framework/language/database/etc. to use?
Facebook has barely reached cash flow positive, and that only means more money is coming in rather than going out [only stating it for argumentative purposes, I know you understand what it means, of course haha]. So until they are [consistently] making enough revenue to cover part of their $700+ million in VC funding, I won't use them as a successful example. Facebook has plenty of potential, but I have my doubts about how much they can grow in terms of revenue. I believe that their user numbers will continue to grow, but I'm not sure that each user is as valuable for them as for Google. Until they change user behavior and intent significantly, I don't foresee Facebook creating a global marketplace on the scale that Google has.
In regard to business school, which I am in a form of... I do not believe that we are prepared by attending business school to execute, like you stated. We execute by being acutely aware of the circumstances and understanding the situation, which is attained outside of the classroom by seeing and doing. But overall... I am not quite sure what point you meant to make with that section of your reply.
And I agree, picking a business model is in exactly the same realm as deciding what framework/language/database/etc to use. There is definitely NOT a one-size-fits-all business model. The best managers are aware of the options, like you said, but I do not believe that they are necessarily learned in business school. Understanding how Facebook/Twitter got to where they are today, and trying to speculate where they will be in the future is the kind of thing that prepares you to make the right decision in regard to your own business.
37Signals model of charging for a service, on the other hand, can at least appear reasonably replicable (though also much harder than it seems, if you don't have Fried's natural talent for marketing & PR)
I'm a heavy Flickr user, and their premium account is cheap, worth the price for me, and still a good deal for them. They still make money!
Let's talk about Dropbox. In fact, I don't use premium with them (I'd love to have a yearly 10GB plan for 30$ or 40$, but they just don't have it). I don't exceed more than 1GB used, and that's not a big spending for them. But I do attract some friends to their awesome service, and why not, some heavy users (did someone mention my dad?).
Free means satisfied users and word of mouth advertising, which is really underrated. And premium means money. Just make it worth the price, and "paint" a clear line between what's fair using free and what's worth paying.
"Read it free online
Absolutely free.
The complete book. 16 chapters and 91 essays.
Completely free to read online."