Searching for Real Experiences - The Flipside of Freemium

I've written about Freemium business models in the past, but this is a continuously evolving model. With Chris Anderson's new book coming out soon, I suspect it will get another round of discussion and scrutiny started since the Web 2.0 world of 2006-2008 is now economically different.

This recent article in Forbes highlights the flip side of freemium that is beginning to emerge as more and more people seek to broaden their experience with the brands they love online. This isn't surprising. Digital connections are about abundance, hence the free price tag. Real connections are about scarcity, hence the price premium. The two models co-exist to provide breadth to the user experience, and in turn they continue to feed both sides of the model.

Just as I believe that the upcoming economy will be filled with 2 Guys and the Internet companies around the edges, I also believe that product-centric companies will be looking for new ways to create the scarcity and abundance models that are highlighted here. It's a natural evolution of brand loyalty, this just extends it to micro-targeting and user opt-in. In the past it was too expensive to allow your customers to associate with the brands they loved (except for fanactics), but now the economics have completely changed.

Crowdsourcing - Part V - Joint Ventures in the 21st Century?

Part IV - Recognizing Value

Part III - Educating Customers

Part II - Healthy Lifestyles

Part I - The Big Picture

I've written several times about my belief that the 2008/2009 econalypse and losses of thousands of jobs will be the tipping point to drive companies to move to a much more distributed model of business interaction. I call it "2 Guys and the Internet", and it's focused on the concept that it has become so easy to interconnect your business with others that have expertise that you do not need to have in-house.

Crowdsourcing Question - If you were starting a new company today, and had the option of creating a joint venture between several smaller (existing) companies, or using the "2 Guys" model, which would you choose, and why? The joint venture would bring together expertise in several critical areas for this market (distribution, sourcing, industry knowledge), but does the value of the JV outweigh the challenge of integrating those management teams? Which way would you go?

Reinforcing my "2 Guys and the Internet" model

A little while back I wrote that the likely outcome of this latest econalypse is that corporate jobs will not return in mass, and that a freelance model ("2 Guys and the Internet") or Hollywood-style coordination model would emerge. A study released today from The Kaufmann Foundation shows data that supports that theory.

It also highlights that the average age of entrepreneurs in the US was 39. This is encouraging news for all the students in the executive program that may not love their current position but are concerned about the safety of leaving the existing paycheck. If you start something now, you won't be alone in taking the risk to start that opportunity which might better align with your passion. And since there are plenty of entrepreneurs out there with distinct skills, there are more opportunities to connect with them to provide a broader range of products or services.

2 Guys and the Internet?? Maybe your next business...

This past week, I watched a video from the new Dean of the WFU Business schools, Steve Reinemund. It covered a number of topics:

• The current economy and its effects on WFU and the business schools (undergrad and graduate)
• The merging of the undergrad and graduate programs and the vision to improve the school's offerings and ranking.
• Steps the school is taking to ensure that near-term graduating students will receive additional assistance in finding employment.

One area that interested me quite a bit were his comments about creating new business school models that leveraged the breadth of education that WFU offered, both from the liberal arts of the undergrad departments and the joint activities of the business schools. The main idea being that we need to do a better job of bringing together excellent ideas and people, regardless of their field of discipline. It makes alot of sense to me, considering that very few companies compete in markets which are only taught in B-Schools (maybe banking or consulting?).

Over the weekend, I went to a number of social events and the topic of the economy came up with several friends. We made the obligatory guesses at how long the downturn will last and how severe it will ultimately be. In most cases, we determined that many of the jobs being lost will probably not come back, at least not for large corporations. They will find that productivity has outpaced the cost of the employees, or that buying habits will be changed for many years to come because of this recession.

These two things got me thinking. Why doesn't the school create a "2 Guys (or Gals) and the Internet" program to drive entrepreneurship? It could start as an extension to Dr.Mandel's Center for Entrepreneurship, or it could be much smaller and focused, like Mark Cuban's Open Source Stimulus program. And don't limit it to just the Business school. Begin to leverage the goal to tie in the entire set of skills and thoughts of Wake Forest. Or be really bold, and start expanding the program to include other schools from the ACC, maybe leveraging those that have skills that aren't world-class at Wake Forest. Lots of smart engineers at Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and NC State. Amazing things happen when you allow yourself to branch out with small ideas.

So where does the "and the Internet" part come into this thinking? Am I requiring that these new ventures be only focused on Internet technology? No way!! I'm suggesting that since there are so many opportunities these days to leverage the interconnectedness of the Internet to source aspects of a business, that this should be a mandate of the program. These "2 person" operations will need to use all the leverage they can to compete, and that's completely possible with today's Internet. Need business cards - link up with Moo. Need to host your business operations - link with Amazon. Need early market research or advertising buzz - link up with Twitter. These are just basic items, but the ability to pay-as-you-need and grow without all the fixed costs (or people) is there for the right idea and motivation.