In crisis people try to save money and spend less. The Village chose the 9 business models that can help through difficult times entrepreneurs and their customers
1. The loan on trust
- Alternative methods of credit, especially given the recent increase in Central Bank key rate, now more relevant than ever. Traditional banks have many faults, for example, high interest rates, non-transparent pricing, the desire to work with large borrowers. Some of these problems helps to solve an emerging model of peer-to-peer (peer-to-peer) lending. The leader of a niche company Lending Club in December with great success went IPO, now the company's capitalization is more than $ 9 billion. Lending Club allows you to borrow money on the credit of ordinary people, the site earns commissions for arranging transactions and credit risk is not responsible.
- The process works like this: the borrower fills out a form on the website, indicating your personal details and the desired amount of loan, then Lending Club evaluates its creditworthiness and assigns credit rating. From the rating depends n the level of interest rates (from 6 %). The loans are repayable in three or five years. The creditors are shown the list of applications and select someone willing to cooperate. However, they have the right to determine the amount of cash that you are willing to allocate. So the borrower is often several creditors. Since inception through the area with loans of more than $ 6 billion, and the company's revenue for 2014 amounted to more than $ 150 million. In Russia at Lending Club there are several similar models with slightly different models: Vdolg.ru, Credberry, Loanberry, Fingooroo.
2. Selling old phones
- The average life expectancy of a phone is 18 months. What is subjective is to get the stuff for a long time gathering dust in the drawer for some continues to be of some value. Sprint collects used phones for those who are interested in them. A lot of options. First, this India and Africa, where a thriving market for second-hand equipment. Secondly, it is production that require precious metals that are used in the manufacture of phones. Thirdly, it's own store Sprint. To restore the phone to its original form, requires much less money and effort than to produce new. Often you just need to update the scratched case and change the battery and the phone looks like new. A customer brings unneeded phone into a Sprint office, and an employee of the company, assessing the state of the gadget calculates how many will be able to get it from the partner company. The percentage of this amount he pays the owner of the phone.
3. Place at the dinner table
- The crisis is not the best time for trekking in restaurants: too much have to pay. The waiters are arrogant, the music is wacky, strange people around, the food pretentious and cooked without a soul. In General, uncomfortable and expensive.
- App SupperKing has set a goal to do with restaurants what Airbnb did to hotels. SupperKing allows preparing hospitable hosts to capitalize on their talents. Thanks to the app everyone can invite yourself to dinner for additional guests, having thus inexpensive home restaurant. Guests come, eat, meet with masters, and then you can also rate this mini-restaurant. If to invite strangers afraid, you can just cook away. A great way to make some money on their cooking.
4. Taxi with fellow travelers
- The idea of resource sharing is in the air since the last crisis. If the car-share system (handing over my car lease for a short time), which is offered by companies such as Getaround, RelayRides and JustShareIt, Russia seems too extreme, the idea to bring someone with you along the way, sounds more familiar. For such motorists were invented services SideCar and BlaBlaCar. First you can use during trips around town, the second for travel. Both services allow you to assign for the trip price and to find fellow travellers willing to pay. Relatively speaking, the driver at the time turns your car into a taxi. If he often travels on a particular route, it may take constant companions, thereby reducing their spending on gasoline. Application allow to split expenses between multiple companions, so for them the cost of the trip is reduced significantly.
5. All the books at once
- For lovers of reading crisis — a bleak era when buying conventional printed books 500 rubles is too expensive. For those who plan to read as much as before, but for less money, there are libraries and services electronic subscription. The most successful Russian — Bookmate, the foreign Oyster and Scribd. They differ from each subscription, database books, as Advisory services. In Scribd already has invested more than $ 38 million in Oyster — 31 million. This year, Apple bought the book recommendation platform BookLamp. Experts believe this is a sign that the company is working on its own subscription service.
- BookLamp is a system that, relatively speaking, able to read books and based on the algorithm Book Genome to understand what they are and what other books are similar. For example, Scribd works differently: its founder hired a group of people who read books and klassificeret them on a large number of tags (genre, theme, style and so on). Work is going pretty slow until more tags were put down only 10 thousand books. Comfortable and smart Recommender system is the main headache of such services. How to repeat the experience of people walking along the bookshelves in the store? How to make sure that subscribers understand that they have something to read next? Another problem is to negotiate with major publishers to provide subscription services right to the bestsellers.
6. Dinner for the week
- The subscription services are suitable for crisis time, because they allow to plan costs. It's nice to understand that you in a month will spend exactly 150 rubles. It would be great to plan and other expenses. For example, shopping sober is a services that focusing on the stylistic preferences of the person, send him monthly a certain number of things you can try on and send back those that did not like. So you can withdraw at a time of crisis from a shopping trip and prevent impulse purchases. You can plan and spending on food. For this example, is "Home". 2 700 rubles, you bring a set of products and a list of recipes for dinners for a week for two. Products just as much as you, so don't have surplus halves of onions and herbs, which then lies idle and wasted.
7. The fee for a laugh
- The anti-crisis program for the entertainment industry — pay only for what you really like. This year's one theatre in Barcelona was installed in the hall system, which records how many times you laughed during the presentation of the Comedy. To pay the spectator will have the results for every laugh 24 cents, but not more than 24 dollars for a performance. All the laughter more than $ 24 — free. The system works like this: the back of each chair mounted screen that responds to a change in facial expression of the viewer sitting in front of him, reads, smile, and recognize the sounds similar to laughter. However, how to assess the quality of the tragedies, not yet invented.
8. Free calls
- To cut spending on telephone, invented many ways such as free WhatsApp messages and Skype calls. In India, where calls are very expensive, extended this scheme: people agree on the value of one, two or three calls. For example, a girl comes home to tell his friend that she's fine, dials the number, waits for two beeps and resets.
- One American entrepreneur noticed it and decided to use. Now different companies in their Indian advertisements indicate a special number that you can call and immediately reset. It will be a signal for the company to call back to the client. Through the system ZipDial has been more than 416 million calls. The company now operates in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and continues its victorious procession on the countries with expensive mobile connection.
9. Salary gamers
- There is such a computer game Roblox that allows gamers (mostly teenagers up to 15) to earn what they do. Roblox is not a game so much as a platform for creating games. You are given the tools from which you create a small game in the style of Minecraft. The game revolves ads, and the percentage of advertising revenue gives Roblox the Creator of this mini-game. Roblox company has existed for eight years, but the business model has decided to change only in 2013. The opportunity to earn attracted new players and those new advertisers, the circle is closed. During the year the company paid players in the order of 600 thousand dollars earned on advertising.
