About the USPs of new companies like Netflix, Uber and Airbnb

Recently I was giving some workshops to students at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) on ‘How to create your own startup as ‘plan b”. One assignment from the ‘5-step Startup Blueprint’ we use was about the earnings models/digital revenue models and business models of companies like Netflix, Uber and Airbnb. After the students had looked at these companies, they saw a number of interesting characteristics.

First of all  none of them ‘owns’ a large amount of traditional material assets like buildings and offices and they are all digital marketleaders in different digital customer value disciplines. The new companies all have desintermediated large existing players in their respective industries,  dematured existing industries by using new technology and have thus completely changed the traditional rules of the game in the industries concerned.

They are network companies, virtual companies, with a very limited number of managers and employees and have unique digital value propositions, revenue models and business models based on new technology. Some 100% online and other mixed online and offline. Besides that, they are all newcomers in the industry and have digitally disrupted with new technology.

And finally, a very interesting one: they make money online with the assets of other companies or other individuals: movies, taxi’s and appartments and houses owned by third parties.

These examples also show that existing incumbents in digital content related industries or in the services industry globally but also locally often are having a hard time to succesfully fight back against this type of new players. The reason seems to be simple: many incumbents are just too slow to change and transform themselves in time before their traditional revenue streams are drying up.

That also teaches us another interesting lesson: you really have to choose the right approach to change or transformation and implement the transition on time and fast if you are an incumbent in a number of industries. Or else you are in big trouble when you suddenly get ‘blown out of the water’ by companies like Netflix, Uber and Airbnb. What do you think?