User growth and feature enhancements are the building blocks towards the early success of a startup, but as a startup becomes a company, it needs to be able to stand on its own. Monetizing a startup can be a harrowing and heart wrenching experience, since many companies put off these integrations until a product is established, leaving them with little choice but to resort to traditional monetization methodologies like advertising, since any model doesn't fit their current product state, but it doesn't have to be that way. Through working with thousands of startups within PayPal innovation programs and beyond, we have seen how early adoption of proper monetization methodologies can provide you with creative solutions for building a financial backing into your startup, without ever having to resort to hard selling your users to help keep you profitable; the same users who built your product to begin with. Exploring these principles, we'll see how essential creative monetization principles are towards building a strong backbone into a startup, helping it survive the trials of feature and user growth.

1. The Profitable Startup
Jonathan LeBlanc (@jcleblanc)
Head of Developer Evangelism (North America)
PayPal | Developer

2. The Problem…
A Relentless Focus on User Growth

5. The Digital Revolution

6. Physical Costs
Price of Goods
Storage
Shipping
Returns
…
Digital vs. Physical Goods
Digital Costs
…a few bytes

7. The Problems with the Model
Chargebacks and fraud
Copyright owner concerns
Tracking buyers

8. Preventing Fraud: Tracking Buyers
Email domain type
User browsing & buying habits
Manual review
Device Fingerprinting
IP to billing address location

9. https://panopticlick.eff.org/
More on Device Fingerprinting
Browser characteristic Bits of identifying
information
1 in x browsers with
same characterists
User Agent 12.01 4117.11
Browser Plugin Detail 6.8 111.13
Time Zone 21.6+ 3178409
Screen Size / Color Depth 4.56 23.58
System Fonts 21.6+ 3178409
Cookies Enabled? 0.44 1.35
Limited Supercookie Test 0.98 1.97

10. Mobile as a Primary Citizen

11. Working with the App Stores
Any product that can be purchased
from the app store needs to be
Physical goods are ok – Use a
WebView
Construct a wrapper the handle cross-
device requests

12. Working with These Models
Responsive, cross-platform HTML5
web applications
Reduce the number of screens to
checkout
Use knowledgeable identity systems

13. Data Reduction with Identity

14. Identity to Remove Complexities

15. Creating with a Crowd

16. Crowdfunding vs. Group Funding
Many people funding a
single individual to
perform an end action
Many people funding an
end action

17. Why Crowdfunding is so Hard
Tracking money to its final source
Vetting project owners
Time to payment charge
Handling chargebacks
Very poor history of success

18. Group Funding Decisions
Short term vs. long term money
holding
Direct payment to 1 person or auth
/capture model?
Who is responsible for chargebacks /
refunds?

19. Building on a Data Backbone

20. An Old Addage
"If you aren't paying for the
product, you are the product"

22. Data Responsibility
Personalize, don’t
abuse
Anonymizing the data
sources

23. The Problems with the Model
Long time until the data becomes
profitable
Narrow data focus area means
limited uses

24. Using our Building Blocks

25. Optimists consider that up to a 30% of
ecommerce sales increase is thanks to
cross-selling recommended products
fikobservatory
Personalized Recommendations

26. Changing Action to Intent
Traits of the Bored
Distraction
Repetition
Tiredness
Reasons for Boredom
Lack of interest
Readiness

27. Thank You!
Jonathan LeBlanc (@jcleblanc)
Head of Developer Evangelism (North America)
PayPal | Developer