The new class of Internet-age companies deal in one thing: data. But how do they turn these huge volumes of data into profitability? So far, it’s been a struggle for even the biggest players.
See Yelp, around since 2014 with 132 million unique monthly visitors is still having trouble becoming profitable as of May 2014.
One of my personal favorites, Twitter, is profitable as of Q4 2013 but continuously takes a hit in the market for shrinking usage. And they currently have 190 million unique visitors every month.
Even one of the darlings of the age, with a recent $100 billion IPO has yet to turn a profit, and they have more than 1 billion unique monthly visitors. It is estimated that about 2.5 billion of the world’s 7 billion people have internet access, which means almost half of those with internet access use Facebook. Those numbers are astounding.
I believe there is an organic, value-adding, win/win way in which these companies can make money with all that data and it’s just a matter of time.
How do you see these companies evolving in the future?