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99 designs...and thousands of brains behind it...

99designs.com is a platform, bringing together talented designers from around the globe with companies in search for one of the latter to resolve their design challenges.

Customers searching for design help can simply sign up in three steps, informing 99design.com and their designer crowd about the company’s budget, posting its detailed design brief and finally launching the project. For each design challenge customers post on the website, they pay approximately $39 USD to 99design.com and then decide how much they would like to offer as a “prize” for the designer winning the contest. The customer can publish his or her project within five general categories: identity, web, print, graphics and merchandise.
Once the challenge posted on the site, designers have around 7 days to submit their design concepts, from which by the end of the design concept, the customer can choose the winning design.

Through this very innovative platform, which was created by designers for designers, companies can easily find access to professional designers and rapid solutions to their design problems, without having to choose a particular specialized company that would take most of the time longer to solve the problem and charge more to the client. Designers are given the advantage of signing up to the website for free and then accessing what could be called a worldwide “job platform”, since they can submit their concepts to all of the posted challenges. Moreover through customer feed-back, or chatting with other designers, the latter can progress in their work and know-how.

99design.com is offering its services to companies around the world, no matter its size or nature of business. The design platform gains its revenue through the subscription fee when customers post their design projects to the website.

The business model used by 99design.com is unique to the web. There is no possibility outside the virtual world to unite so many creative designers with such a great number of companies in need of design help.
Most businesses need to cut back on their budgets and are looking for creative new ways of finding original products, or designs, without having to pay a maximum. Since the website goes with the actual trend of crowdsourcing, a trend which will certainly find an increased usage in the years to come, 99design.com is unquestionably here to last.

For the moment 99design.com seemingly only revenue source is the $39 USD fee for companies launching their design challenges. To increase their revenue and further extend their business they could start offering online “tutorials” or “classroom-like” sessions for those young designers who would like to learn or get tips from winning designers of the platform.

Another very simple way of increasing their revenue would be by allowing advertising on their website or simply translating the website into several other languages to make the site more accessible to companies and/or designers who do not necessarily speak fluent English.

The community and crowsourcing approach could certainly be used in other areas. Why not in the software industry for instance? Companies looking for a software, solving precise needs can post their challenges and programmers around the globe can submit their solutions.

It would also perfectly suit into the music business, for companies looking for jingles to go with their advertising clips for instance.

Another way of using the crowdsourcing and community business model is displayed by Geniusrocket.com. The company offers creative services for challenges concerning videos, graphic design and plain ideation, such as slogans and company or product names.

As mentioned earlier, as the need for fresh, creative ideas for less money evolves, crowdsourcing will find its way in many different industries.

InnoCentive...Follow-up

What is InnoCentive @ Work?
InnoCentive at work is first of all looking for a solver inside the firm. InnoCentive believes that a company does normally not know how much they already know, so only if an internal solution cannot be found, the outisde network is brought into play.

Why is it innovative?
Normally companies used only a specific department (for instance R&D) to try to find solutions for their problems. With InnoCentive @ Work, everybody in the company is asked to share brains and find the most appropriate solution. This is moreover less expensive for the company, since the employees already work for the business. Furthermore it has the advantage that the employees have insider knowledge, the outside network does not have.

Vente-privée.com – Revolutionizing Overstock’s Sales…

Vente-privée.com is THE site for private, invitation-only luxury close out sales. The sites offers daily new sales of renowned brands, such as Toni & Guy, Chantelle, Mattel, Yves Saint Laurent and others, covering almost all kind of products, from baby shoes, over exclusive household appliances, up to seductive women lingerie or Champagne.

According to an article published on buisnessweek.com (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jan2008/gb20080111_222659.htm), the site sold an average of 40.000 items a day in the beginning of 2008, attracting more and more brands who would like to sell their leftover stocks on the website.
The article further explains the first mover advantage of vente-privée.com, which opened its virtual doors in 2001. Moreover it describes the fact that the internet site above all manages to be ahead of its competitors, due to its large investment in marketing and site presentation. Indeed the company pays very much attention to the trailer clips, notifying its customers of upcoming sales, overall look and feel of the site, its entry page (with changing, animated backgrounds) and item presentation during the sales. Following the article on businessweek.com, the company even hires models, hairdressers, photographs and make-up artists to take professional, attractive photos of the items to sell, giving them a glamorous appearance instead of posting grainy pictures of unsold merchandise. The company as well invests in a team of journalist to publish its own fashion magazine “Rosebuzz” and records its own music, further increasing the great look and feel of the site.

Customers of vente-privée.com have the advantage of being able to purchase items on the site up to 75% less expensive than the regular store prices. Brands working together with vente-privée.com have the opportunity to sell their left-over stock, without risking harming their luxurious image thanks to vente-privée.com’s professional and luxury presentation, and vente-privee.com itself does not even take any financial risks since they are just working as a middleman in the transaction. They register the orders passed by the customers on the site and after the closing of the sale, which lasts up to 72 hours, pass them on the original seller, who will deliver the items some time later to the vente-privee.com platform, where the goods get dispatched and sent to the clients. Vente-privée.com retains a profit margin of 20 – 40% of each sold item, which generates their main revenue. At the same time their fashion magazine provides information on products, which eventually generates additional revenue.

In addition to their regular sales, vente-privee.com also provides its loyal customers (those who ordered at least once on the site) with access to VP Lounge, a web space dedicated to the most luxurious brands, opened on particular occasions for exclusive sales only.

To increase their revenue and further contribute to their customers’ vente-privée addiction, the site offers a special widget “VP bubbles” to loyal customers. The widget, made up of a small number of pink bubbles gives live information on the current sales on the site, the status of the customer’s “recruits” (and therefore earned reduction if they pass command on the site) as well as latest information published on the VP blog or fashion magazine. Of course to keep up with the latest evolutions, vente-privée.com also provides mobile applications and free goodies, such as wallpapers.

The site thought of everything to get their users addicted to their concept. The music they record for their website and the product trailers even became so famous that the site now is offering them for sale when passing an order.

The concept of vente-privée.com would be perfectly adapted for the travel sector. Due to the current economic crisis, most people try to make economies where they can, starting by cutting short on evenings in restaurants or going on trips. By giving extra discounts on ready to go travel packages, the customers could be seduced in giving in to their desire to travel and at the same time economizing money, compared to what they would normally have spend to organize the trip. At the same time it would give the possibility to hotels as well as airlines or train companies to make additional revenue on low dates and then sell additional extras, such as breakfast or supplements for room-upgrades. The site offering access to this discounted travel opportunities would get revenue in the same way that vente-privée.com does, by retaining a commission on the sold reservations.

www.voyage-prive.com is using this concept in the travel industry. Just like vente-privee.com does with its items, voyage-privé.com is offering its clients (subscription on invitation only) access to up to 70% discounted trips or hotel reservations. The client has the possibility to choose from several preselected dates and packages (for instance different room categories, with or without transport, breakfast included, etc) during the special sale, which last normally up to 72 hours.

The same concept also found its way to the beauty industry. The site www.beauteprivee.fr, part of the voyage-privee.com network, for instance offers cosmetic articles as well as spa packages or evening overnight stays in hotels including spa treatments.

I believe the “vente-privee concept” will come to existence in more and more industries, as more and more customers are looking and asking for exclusive products and packages for less money.

Boo!

Boo.com is a new, young travel site. It provides five main categories, hotels – guides – attractions – restaurants – nightlife, which pull up an extensive amount of information concerning the selected location. Boo.com is a community based website, since all reviews are written by travellers who have already visited the concerned location. The site is very well structured and “puts everything you need in one place”, offering a fully inclusive search and comparison engine, traveller reviews and direct links to supplier sites.

The site, offering such a complete range of information, makes life for travel hungry visitors quite easy. There is no need any more for going back and forth on sites, checking reviews, finding the official hotel website to get the rate information, trying to find more information or guides on the location itself and by the way the traveler finally choose a hotel, the latter is sold out for the requested dates. It is very timesaving and easy for the visitor to find out everything about the location, check all sorts of different hotels and even find the best rate, since Boo.com compares the rates on nine booking sites, such as booking.com, trav.com or laterooms.com.
Boo.com offers free referencing of hotels and restaurants, which helps to increase their site visibility and at the same time also offers a solution to send highly targeted traffic directly to the property’s website and gives the visitor the possibility to directly book with the hotel. There is also the opportunity for tourism related businesses to reference for free under the category “things to do”.
Given the fact that the site is very visitor friendly and at the same time attracts businesses with free referencing, the importance of the site grows which helps the website to increase revenue through advertising. The more visitors the site counts, the more interesting it is for partners to advertise on Boo.com.

Boo.com basically caters to everybody who is interested in travelling. The travel guides provide information for young people as well as for the more mature generation. Information and travel tips are covering all kinds of budgets, so everybody can be sure to find what he or she is looking for.

As mentioned earlier, there is no subscription fee for site members, neither a reference fee for hotels or tourism related businesses of all sorts. The travel site’s main revenue therefore certainly comes from advertising and eventually from commissions from the sponsored booking sites.

Boo.com is following a trend which started quite a few years ago – community based travel tips and reviews, helping the visitor to prepare his visit and eventually book his hotel. Two very known sites, and of course competitors to Boo.com are Expedia.com and Tripadvisor.com. Those two sites are of course bigger and more developed than Boo.com, since they’ve been up and running for a much long time, but yet Boo.com has the advantage of a more human look and feel and the visitor does not risk to get lost on their site. Moreover on Tripadviser for instance, one is forced to sign up before being able to take a peek at a city guide, Expedia is not even offering destination guides, but mainly a list of commercialized attractions.

The travel site business model is unique to the web, since it uses the knowledge of everybody, the “collective wisdom” to bring the various worldwide destinations closer to the potential travellers. Travel sites, such as Boo.com brought the conventional offline travel agency a huge step further, since the traveller does not only depend on the opinion of the travel agency’s salesperson, but can use the advise and tips of millions of people worldwide.

More and more people like to use travel sites to get information before their trips. It is a little bit like asking a friend, who just travelled to the destination in question, for advice. The site’s members’ opinions are honest and not biased or influential like marketing and PR strategies. More and more individuals are looking for democratization of services and honesty and the sense of community becomes stronger, therefore business models based on these values, such as the one used by Boo.com, will certainly grow during the years to come.
Nevertheless to make their site more known and increase their number of members, Boo.com could launch for instance an application on Facebook. Moreover it would go along with the very modern and young look of boo.com and at the same time facilitates even more the use of the website for the user.

Also Boo.com does not yet offer flight reservations, as do other travel sites, which certainly would be a further plus for the site and would help to increase revenue through for example special airline features.

Another way to expand revenue sources in the future could be to offer mobile phone applications, such as maps or “SOS I’m lost” direct help.

Even though hotel referencing is free on the site, and this is part of the Boo.com concept, the site could offer payable services to tourism related business, such as special features on the entry page or a “The Boo Team proudly presents...” article to present hotels or restaurants who just signed up.

As consumer needs evolve there will be certainly more than just one way for travel sites to evolve and progress, satisfying travel hungry visitors and the business’ revenue needs all at the same time.

InnoCentive...Uniting Creative Thinkers

InnoCentive is a company providing a global virtual platform, connecting companies, academic institutions, public sector and non-profit organizations, that can post complex challenges, they are seeking solutions for.
People can become members (solvers) of the website and suggest creative and innovative solution to the challenges and gain rewards.

The business helps to connect hundreds of thousands of creative thinkers with specialized knowledge or new ideas, trying to help solve problems for the seekers. The solution seeking companies get access to outside knowledge and fresh ideas, which often “inside” people could not have thought of, or when asking consulting companies for help, would have been much more expensive than the rewards offered to the successful solver. At the same time InnoCentive also offers consulting services and helps restructuring the organization in a more innovative one.
At the same time the platform gives the chance to intelligent and creative people to earn important amounts of money by providing new ideas and connects them with companies, they would not have had access to before.
InnoCentive does not charge any fees for solvers, therefore attracts them and increased the creative community they offer to seekers, who of course have to pay a fee to be able to access the community and post there challenges or use InnoCentive’s consultancy services.

InnoCentive offers its service to two basic costumer groups: Corporate and Non-Profit Organizations. Whereas Corporate Companies are paying a fee to be able to post their challenges on the site and pay an award to the successful solver, InnoCentive in collaboration with Rockefeller is providing funding to help Non-Profit Organizations to access the worldwide innovative community.

As mentioned earlier the main revenue source of InnoCentive comes through subscription fees paid by seekers, commissions on rewards paid to solvers and consultancy services, which enhances their possibility of helping Non-Profit Organizations and benefiting the poor.

There are quite a few companies working in the Open Innovation industry, such as Innovation Point (http://www.innovation-point.com/index.htm) for instance. Innovation Point, like many other businesses and in opposite to InnoCentive, is mainly suggesting consultancy services and software, but not a platform connecting companies with creative thinkers.
Another competing business is Philoptima (http://www.philoptima.org). In contrast to InnoCentive, Philoptima is focusing on only philanthropy related topics, such as education, health or the environment for instance. Still they are using a quite similar business model, as they suggest as well an innovation platform, connecting companies to creative thinkers in order to find solutions to their challenges. Besides the fact that Philoptima is only targeting humanity/community related challenges, they also differentiate themselves from InnoCentive, since they are not offering consultancy services to create innovative organizational structures. Nevertheless they offering the service of helping to find an adapted consultant (a member signed up to Philoptima) to a specific challenge.

The business model used by InnoCentive is unique to the web. Outside the virtual world it would hardly be possible to unite so many people, working in so many different fields to find adapted solutions to challenges. The R&D is going through changes and outside opinions are getting more and more important to help finding new, breakthrough solutions, therefore uniting people from different fields, working outside the companies boundaries becomes crucial. The Internet enables companies like InnoCentive to reach creative thinkers around the globe and create a huge database. The interest in the topic and the need for open innovation growing, there is still no end in sight for the creation of new companies using the same or similar business concepts.

Even though InnoCentive is certainly one of the major players in the Open Innovation industry and they are bound to last for still some time according to the reasons mentioned earlier, there are certainly ways for them to expand their business.

The company was founded in 2001, but still seems not to be much known in Europe, where the concept of Open Innovation and crowdsourcing is just emerging. This gives the business the possibility to increase their customer base, by using marketing and advertising, trying to make more people aware of how open innovation can benefit their businesses.

Another possibility would be to expand their consultancy services by creating highly experienced InnoCentive teams which can come inside the company to help with brainstorming and finding new solutions, if the company is seeking for external help but does not want to expose their challenge on the website.

Open Innovation becoming an essential factor to modern management, I believe it would be highly beneficial to offer their consultancy services to management schools to train the talents of tomorrow on how to use external and internal solutions.

I believe that time and evolution in open innovation will bring even more new ways of how to expand a business model as the one discussed above, since the future of successful businesses is based on innovation and united creativity.

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