BUSINESS MODEL & VIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR PURE-PLAY INTERNET STARTUPS?- CASE OF A TRAVEL WEBSITE

Taiwan, an island of innovation and technology, is famous for its entrepreneurial spirit and high efficient small-and-middle business. Transforming from a manufacturing-oriented OEM empire to a service-oriented design center, Taiwan has begun to position itself in the software industry in recent years, and many entrepreneurs in Taiwan have chosen the Internet as their new venture field. These Internet entrepreneurs believe that the entry barrier of the Internet startup has reached its lowest level like never before.
This paper intends to develop an optimistic approach of business model pivot for the Internet startups in terms of higher viability. Based on the sources of revenue, the three major pure-play Internet business models (market maker, audience maker, and demand coordinator) will first be introduced. On top of that, the elements of viability will be analyzed through out a customer’s lifecycle (acquisition, conversion, and retention.) According to the prior studies mentioned in this paper, an Internet startup can possibly become more viable by pivoting its business model.
Therefore, conclusively, a proposition of business model pivot for higher viability is induced from the three pure-play Internet business model analysis with the correlated viability factors. This paper suggests to start with the market maker model and prepare for the demand coordinator business for the later phase. Meanwhile, grow the audience maker business steadily in parallel because the return of the audience maker business will not be realized until the user base has reached its commercial advertising value in the long run. For better understanding, the proposition will later be applied to a fledgling travel website as an example. In the end, the derived business development roadmap for the travel website case will be examined by some external consultants. For further studies, this paper suggests the topics: consumer psychology, and the scalability.