Last month, I spoke in a Silicon Valley-based VC fund. They have brought me to drive home the message of fintechnolization. I have postulated that all digital platforms have one thing in common: they will mature to offer financial services to ecosystem players and participants. So, irrespective of whatever Tencent, Alibaba, Google, Facebook, and anyone do, at the end, they will become a quasi-fintech company.
Today, we are reading that Clubhouse is joining that construct very fast: the ‘one-year-old social audio app reportedly valued at $1 billion, will now allow users to send money to their favorite creators — or speakers — on the platform. In a blog post, the startup announced the new monetization feature, Clubhouse Payments, as the “the first of many features that allow creators to get paid directly on Clubhouse.”’ Simply, fintechnolization is working at Clubhouse and they want to use that to deepen the ecosystem.
Today, we’re thrilled to begin rolling out Payments—our first monetization feature for creators on Clubhouse. All users will be able to send payments today, and we’ll be rolling out the ability to receive payments in waves, starting with a small test group today. Our hope is to collect feedback, fine-tune the feature, and roll it out to everyone soon.
If you are building a digital ecosystem, thinking within the construct of fintechnolization is strategic because sooner rather than later, you will be forced to make that call. This connects to the one oasis strategy and how empires of the future are those with demand, not just supply.
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This video – from Tekedia Live – explains the construct.
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Without payment or fintech component, there’s really no future for a digital company. Having millions of users won’t save you, certainly not in the age of data handling scrutiny; running ads will soon become unpopular. The best bet is to bake in payment system in the architecture, because it will always come handy, and those who value the platform will have to payment to keep it alive.
Everything has changed in the digital space, so all those ‘gather people and sell ads’ constructs are becoming obsolete, a clear value capturing mechanism is fundamental to shelf life every digital enterprise.
Creating websites, blogs and apps isn’t the issue, but how to keep them alive over the long haul; wishful thinking won’t do the trick, the cost of making it better can send you into extinction.
Find a way to extract fees from users, or stay out of trouble; digital platforms aren’t cheap to maintain.