Business Models: Plugg Start-up winners Mendeley & Myngle

Today, European internet entrepreneurs, investors and bloggers gathered on the Plugg 2009 conference to look at the ‘new web’ and its future. One of the key elements on Plugg is the Start-ups Rally, a pitching competition where 20 start-ups present their business to the audience and a challenging jury of investors and thought leaders. Let’s have a look at the business model of the 2 winners!

Mendeley.com: Last.fm for research

Freemium business model - Mendeley

The overall winner was Mendeley.com (congratulations!). Mendeley positions itself as a “Last.fm for research”. They offer a free social application for managing and sharing research papers, in combination with a web 2.0 site for discovering research trends and connecting to like-minded academics. Mendeley is a typical example of a free business model (subcategory: Freemium). When you sign up, the social app and service are completely free. While the existing features will always remain free, Mendeley plans to introduce new features in the future and make them available to premium users for a fee. Conclusion… Free + Premium = Freemium business model.

Myngle.com: The new way to learn languages

Broker business model - Myngle.com

The crowds’ favorite at Plugg 2009 was the new study platform Myngle.com. This online platform offers a relative new way to learn languages by bringing together teachers and students from all over the world. Looking in our database of business models, you see that Myngle relies on a typical Broker model similar to eBay or Zopa: bringing a traditional business to the online mass market. The students pay a fixed price per lesson to a teacher. Myngle charges 18% commission on the transactions.

As such, Myngle brings a successful, existing online business model into a new market. Other start-ups like LiveMocha and Linkua offer similar services, but Myngle differentiates itself by asking students to pay 300-400 EUR upfront for lessons to ensure continuity of taking lessons (not stop after 1 lesson). Myngle has a revenue stream of 20,000 EUR per month growing steadily.

More revenue model examples and inspiration:

Posted on March 12, 2009 in Banking & professional services, Internet & media

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aramonsuarez+%23plugg Ramón

Great presentations of their models. Would you be willing to do the same for all finalists?
Philippe

Hi Ramon,
Thanks for the feedback. We do have the ambition to map out all start-ups’ models next time upfront similar awards, venture nights etc. Any particular other start-up business model from Plugg that you found innovative or special?
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aramonsuarez+%23plugg Ramón

Beebole : http://beebole.com/

And Jinni: http://www.jinni.com/
http://redinnova.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/visualiza-tu-modelo-de-negocios-en-10-bloques/ Visualiza tu modelo de negocios en 10 “bloques” « Emprendimiento & Diseño

[...] En este articulo podrán ver como conceptualizar en 10 entidades y un gráfico sus modelos de negocio. Esta estrategia es muy util cuando están recién ideando su modelo de negocio porque les permite entender más rápidamente las distintas interacciones criticas. Algunos ejemplos de modelos de negocio conceptualizados de esta forma los pueden ver aquí [...]
TonyB

Hi Everyone,
I have a carpet cleaning business in Houston,TX that was doing pretty good until the economy went bad, and with it my clientele. I have a website for the business but I dont
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I thank you and my hungry over-eating children thank you.

thanks,
psoup

The price seems high, are students granted credits for the lessons, or can they use the teachings on their transcript somehow?
http://www.boardofinnovation.com/2009/05/02/online-auctions-from-products-ebay-to-experience-sweemo/ Online Auctions: From Products (eBay) to Experiences (Sweemo) | The Board Of Innovation

[...] transaction is not the ownership of a product, it is the service to use it for a period in time. Myngle.com is another example of online service auctions, bringing together teachers and students on a global [...]
http://www.boardofinnovation.com/2009/03/19/how-to-build-any-business-model-with-only-10-blocks/ The Board Of Innovation » Blog Archive » How to build any business model with only 10 blocks

[...] general principles into your industry. Specific cases will illustrate what the innovation is in the business model of new start-ups, how you can make the transfer from one model to another, and which key success factors should be [...]
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