TICKLE.

COM
 Business Model of Tickle.Com
A business model consists of key ingredients such as :
 Value Proposition
 Revenue model
 Market opportunity
 Competitive Environment
 Competitive advantage
 Market stratergy
 Organisational development
 Management team
 Revenue model :
Tickle made money in three ways:
 Advertising revenue
 Subscription revenue :
customers who signed up for its expanded testing service which
for instance, detailed personal assessments that was available only to
subscribers.
subscription revenue from its online dating service.
 Market opportunity :
Basically targeted at Students and Professionals
Segment.
Competitors:
Initially there were no competitors but later it
had some networking and match making sites
such as Match.com to compete with.
Competitive Advantage:
• Good amount of publicity
• High Investments from outside
• Adopted new methods of self assessment
tests to attract more people
• Maintained good relationship with their
venture capital firms – paid creditors as fast as
possible
Marketing Strategy:

 Affliate Marketing
 Viral Marketing
 Word of Mouth
 Direct Marketing expertise
Management Team:
HBS graduates
• In the HBS incoming 1998 January class, there
were seven students from New Hampshire.
One was James Currier. Another was Rick
Marini, who would become the co-founder of
the company.
 Change in business model

• Advertising model- reports about people who

took up the tests were given to the advertisers
• From advertising model to subscription model
• People who wanted reports had to pay $14.95
SWOT ANALYSIS OF TICKLE.COM
 STRENGTH
• Good amount of publicity
• Had 3 modes of revenue – Advertising, subscription and
online registration
• Could attain high profit in short time
• High Investments from outside
• Adopted new methods of self assessment tests to
attract more people
• Higher increase in revenue through selling client details
• Maintained good relationship with their venture capital
firms – paid creditors as fast as possible
• Entered third party deals on cost per acquisition basis
 WEAKNESS
• Was confined only to self assessment tests and later
only diversed to social networking
• Couldn’t get precised data of customers which they
could sell to their clients
• Couldn’t avoid layoff’s of loyal workers
• Complexity and problems among Board of Directors
in the year 2003 regarding acquisition and IPO’s
• Had to invest excess money on advertisement for
which the result was not up to their expectations
 OPPORTUNITIES
• Large word of mouth publicity right from the
initial stage onwards
• Most visited sites of those days – 18 million
users
• One of the best recognition through TIME
Magazine which increased their popularity
• Diversification of their business to San Francisco
• Acquisition offers from other major players
based on their popularity and Income
 THREAT
• High level competition with Match.com
• Other competitors had an eye on them (acquisition)
so that one competitor is less in the market
• Advertisement revenue came down from $7 - $1 as
Advertisement market collapsed in the year 2000
• Business models collaborated in 2003
• Name change from Emode to “Tickle” created
opinion differences and problems within the
members of the firm.