For American startups, monetization is often
synonymous with procrastination, and too many products die in the valley
between traction and true business. From launch, Pheed anticipated this problem
by allowing anyone on the platform to charge their followers money for the
privilege of reading. The scheme doesn't seem to be stalling growth; in fact,
Pheed’s metrics show its iOS users spend about 15 times as much time on Pheed
as on average iOS apps, according to Flurry.
Companies like eBay and Airbnb quickly balloon in
valuation, but still American web startups are loath to fork over money to the
people actually creating the content--a model that Kobo says is backwards. “We
thought, how do we incentivize people to create better content? Why isn’t
anybody doing that?” The idea to make feeds profitable came from Chinese
businesses that deliver content over SMS. “You’d have a pop star that put out
an SMS blast, and to accept it, the fans would pay $0.25," says Kobo. "It
was sleazy way to make money, and the content was cheesy, but the initial birth
of the concept was there: The artist who makes the content is actually making
money.” Learn more
