Social Entrepreneur

Definition: A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors. (Source: wikipedia)

My opinion is that social entrepreneurship is a real shift to corporate responsibility, as inequalities are growing very fast in the world (The 250 richest people have as much money as the 3 billion poorest people in the world in 2006). It is one concrete solution trying to reach a more sustainable development for the planet.

vente-privee.com

1. "Vente privée" is a french e-business site with the particularity that it is supposed to be a private club, where you need a godfather to get an access. The site has such a great succes in France, that is not too difficult to find a Godfather, and ones this done, is possible to access all the private sales that interest you. (Already 3 million member and a turnover of 240 million euros in 2006 with 40 sales manager)

The main advantage for the customers is that these private sales have very low prices (from -30 to -70%), and last only 1 to 2 days. The customers receive an e-mail a few days before telling them what is going to be sold, and if they are interested, they register to that sale. The products are various, and can be: clothes, games, sportswear, watches, high-tech...Every sale has its own advertisement spot, that can be seen before the sale.

For the suppliers this type of sales can be very usefull to get rid of the products that were not sold in the traditionnal circuits, or that they know will have problems in the future to be sold at a regular price.

For the owners of the business this kind of sales is the core of their business, as venteprivee makes money through commissions on the sales realised through their internet site.

The customer group served is very large, as the sold products are various, but has probabely a majority of women aged from 25 to 50, as the products and site's graphics are more housewife oriented.

Competitors:
http://www.achatvip.com/
http://www.vente-en-or.com/home.php
http://www.showroomprive.com/
http://www.fruitrouge.com/
https://www.born4sports.com/FR-fr/Default.aspx
http://www.shopofthespot.com/
http://www.deco-smart.com/fr/accueil.php

Same business model :
http://www.voyage-prive.com/
http://shopping.infobebes.com/ventes_privees/accueil/accueil2.asp

The model could absolutely not be applied offline, as the whole structure is online-based. Mails, direct viewing of the products, direct buying with securised payment. All would be different offline, it would look like a regular "vente privée", which would be an incredible lost of time.

The model is sustainable, because there is no need of a huge amount of customers to make the business work, as the number of products are limited during a given sale. Most of the time everything is sold before the official end of the sale. The most important thing is to find the customer fitting to the product. It is a scalable business, as the number of products and the number of corresponding customers can be increased.

To increase even more the business I would try to have more information about the people registered on the site, to focus more on their needs and expectations, and to avoid selling mails that does not interest the members. A new member would fullfill a formular, telling the type of products he is the more interested in. I would also analyse what has been bought by a member to better understand him, like what "amazon" is doing.

2. Article about venteprivee.com:
http://www.journaldunet.com/reportages/07/070305-vente-privee/1.shtml

3. Websites using venteprivee.com within their website:
http://www.top-vente-privee.fr/
http://lesventesprivees.net/
http://www.shoppingaddict.fr/

What's a Mashup

(computing slang) A derivative work consisting of two pieces of (generally digital) media conjoined together in some interesting way, such as a video clip with a different soundtrack applied for humorous effect, or a digital map overlaid with user-supplied data.
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mashup"

Definition in French :

http://www.journaldunet.com/diaporama/0610-dicoweb2/8.shtml

Exemples :

http://www.housingmaps.com/ (Googlemaps + Craigslist)
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com

FREEMIUM

The 'Freemium model' is the latest concept from Chris Armstrong, Editor-in-chief of Wired and best known for his 'Long Tail' theory. It could be resume in one sentence :
"experiment with giving away one thing to sell something else."

This means people can use for free a service or a product in a certain limit. Behind this limit the customer will have to pay.This business model has been around for a long time. Shareware always used a model like this and there are many successful software companies that have been built with this model.

Source: blog-conversion.com; wikipedia; http://blogs.icerocket.com/tag/buzz

Examples :

Skype – basic in network voice is free, out of network calling is a premium service

Flickr – a handful of pictures a month is free, heavy users convert to Pro

Trillian – the basic service is free, but there is paid version that is full featured

Newsgator – the web reader is free. If you want to synch with outlook and your mobile phone, that’s a paid service

Box.net – you get 1gb of virtual storage for free, but you have to pay for more than that

Webroot – you can get a free spyware scan, but for full protection you need to pay.

Copernic; MIT; Musicovery; Zylom;

Advantages:

- for customers the product is free.

- By using the free product the customer may found out other applications, that he didn't know about.

- The companies using the freemium concept attract many people to their site, and can sell other products.

Disadvantages:

- If the business plan is not good enough, a company giving away to much risks to create losses.

- Difficulties to stop free product, in order to concentrated on others

- Difficulties to make people addicted to freeware become buyers

easyGroup or the web "low cost" diversification concept

The easyGroup was founded by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, a greek heir, who first created Stelmar at the age of 25, a shipping line, before creating the now famous low cost company easyJet in 1995. The first idea of Stelios was to cut the frills in the airplanes to reduce the costs, and then sell the tickets on the internet, using the “paying less the further in advance the customer buys”-principle to grow the average occupancy of the flights. Now these two principles have become the foundations of the group, and Stelios applies them to any business he likes to be in, like movies, hotels, cruises, internet cafés, pizzas, car rentals, cell phones and many more.

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The easyGroup focuses on customers by selling products cheaper than the competitors on a given market. Paying less is of course better for customers, as long as they are convinced to have the same quality in terms of service and security. This is especially true in the Airline business. A crash of an easyJet airplane would probably have more impact than for a regular company, because customer would immediately think of cost reductions in the security field, even if it was not the cause of the crash.

For suppliers and partners working with easyGroup is usually a “brand” issue. They hope to sell more using the name by attracting new people, but also by making regular “Easy users” come to their segment. It can be a really good opportunity for a segment that has no real added value, like car rentals. When the product is similar from one competitor to another, how can a customer choose? Only the brand can in some cases make the difference. But once the brand and the two main principles have been used and applied, the easyGroup has no general business plan, and has to start from scratch when trying to make money out of a new business. This is a disadvantage for suppliers and partners who will have a direct impact from the lack of experience of the easyGroup in the business. Many cars were lost or broken, for example, during the first times of easyCar.com, because of unsecured licensing. This generated huge losses, and the business had to be rethought, and experienced people had to be employed to make the business profitable.

Stelios, the easyGroup owner, is an unsatisfied person by nature, and wants probably to conquer a new business every day. He likes to apply the same method on all the businesses, but has the lucidity to adapt his business plan and to let people with experience make the decisions, in order to reach a yield management. This approach, when successfull, can make the easyGroup become a real empire and make the emperor a very rich and powerful man.

As the easyGroup has no official limit in the consumption market, the customer group, when globally extrapolating, is the entire humanity connected to the web.

The revenue source of the Group has no real difference with its competitors on a given market, but the key to make more money in the Easy philosophy is to sell a lot to compensate the low prices, and to be real “costkillers” in the way to run the business. Finally the cash is generated by the consumer. It is also generated by advertisement, even from competitors. You can find and link to Europcar on easyJet website, even if it is a competitor of easyCar. The group is ready to put two branches in competiton, like they would liberalise their own market, but they are also able to make partnership between two branches. It is a complete new way of making business inside a group. The easyGroup earns also money with commissions from partners, like Mondial UK for example, as they propose travel insurances from this company.


COMPETITORS :

The main competitor of the easyGroup is the Virgin company, runned by Richard Branson, which proposes similar product and services, and has a similar business model of web diversification. Both have the volontee to diversifie the business following the boss’ momental mood. But Virgin seems to be more structured in the diversification, as they have main domains in which they open new businesses like :

- Travel and tourism
- Leisure and pleasure
- Social and environmental
- Shopping
- Media and telecommunication
- Finance and money
- Health

Virgin does not compete internally, as they do not propose or make advertisment for a foreign company that could compete with another company of the group. Virgin does not want to be only a low cost brand, as they for example propose very expensive galactic trips (200,000$).

Another competitor that could be interesting to compare the easyGroup with, is the site voyages-sncf.com, which part of the french public group sncf. They are competitors in travel and resort, and can have lower prices than the easyGroup, and they prove it by creating an "EcoComparateur", which is comparing the costs between flight, car and train, as well as the greenhouse gaz emissions impact. They also propose packages with train hotel and a car, and have created a private subsidiary called idtgv, to dynamise the business.


The easyGroup model could not be applied offline, because internet has now become too helpful to reduce costs, by avoiding personal and buildings, so that this kind of business would for sure not be profitable offline. easyJet has, for example,its only office in the aiplanes’ hangar. Even online the easyGroup had losses in some ventures. Internet is also very helpful to find customer, as it is easier for them to shop at home. As the easyGroup needs to sell a lot to compensate low prices, an offline business would not match the basic principles of the group.


To the basic principle we can add secondary principles, like the entrepreneur spirit, the fun, that has to be concidered on both sides (partners and customers), and the simplicity and efficiency of the product. All this principles applied on a chosen market without fear, in the sense that the group is ready to fight on highly competetive market, with big companies well established (ex.: easyJet, easyHotel, easyPizza...), makes the easyGroup a sustainable company, ready to fight for every marketshare.
Moreover the brand is scaleable as it is becoming the paradigme of what a scaleable company nowadays can be. It has the brand, always the same orange logo, it has its constitution or principles, which can be generally applied to any business, it has the group, which helps until a new venture becomes self-sufficient, and it has thanks to the new technologies, no theoretical country limit. The group does not invest in a deal blindly, but invest if results and benefits are met, so that finally the kind of business is not important. The question is how long is the brand stretchable before it breaks, by losing its credibility, and how will a future big issue in a branch, will impact the otherones through the brand, like a domino?


If I had to run the easyGroup, I would try to diversify my revenue sources, by selling more advertisement on my websites for example. To compensate the lack of human contact with the customers, I would open one office in each country (not more to avoid costs), in centre of the capitals for example, where customer could buy an find informations about every easy ventures. I would call it an “easyCenter”.
I would also diversify the group, by creating other brands with other philosophies, to avoid the dangereous domino effect, that could blow my empire in a row. For example, by creating an “ethical” brand, using the green color, which would not be a low cost brand, but which would ensure the customers, quality and biological products, that allow small farmers and producers around the world to live correctly from their work. This brand would also withstand much better a eventual new e-crach!