Jul 22, 2021

Jul 22, 2021—5 min read Quora is a very popular question and answer platform that has evolved much before voice assistants and artificial intelligence developed into becoming a very common feature. Sustained and developed by real humans who answers the questions raised, Quora is indeed a unique one in the industry. This Q&A platform was launched by Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever in 2009. They were former Facebook employees. Initially, it had no revenue until 2014. But today this social media network that flourishes with questions and answers have an estimated value of $2 billion. With an aim to have a three-digit growth rate, the sole motive of Quora is to generate high-quality answers to the questions that are asked by its users who run into millions. Over the years Quora has become a very reliable platform for getting answers regarding almost all the niches that exist. In this article, a glimpse of Quora’s business model will be looked into. Resources of Quora Its major resource is its user base. They have a very enthusiastic community that asks questions and answers them. They have been funded by many investors through various stages of funding. One such popular funding which changes the game of Quora was that of 2014. As it further expanded to being a platform that promoted advertisements , companies that wanted to promote their products and services became a very important resource. Business Model of Quora Its very friendly user interface and educated consumer base have significantly helped in improving activities in Quora . Apart from random questions and answers it also allows business profiles to start accounts and make use of promoted answers. As mentioned earlier apart from the benefit of getting a platform to share their stand, they are also allowed to promote their brand in such a way that their answers come first. However, it is not in a dangerous manner. The users also have the right to like, upvote and comment on answers which will increase their reach and credibility. The reason Quora been very popular even after a long time since its launch is because of its wide audience base. It does not have a particular age group as the target audience. Their services are solely dependent on the interest of the user and customise their experiences accordingly. What is unique about the Business Model of Quora A unique factor about the business model is that one can observe a blend of both Facebook and Google in their methodology. It is similar to the models of Facebook because it allows you to afford like and comment on questions just like Facebook does and the similarity with Google is because of its mechanism to rank answers and the usage of algorithms. Like them, Quora also makes money through advertisements. What is the Source of Revenue of Quora? They have text and image ads with which they began their advertising journey. It is one of the most used ad formats since it goes very well with the structure and texture of the answers. They make sure that their ads go along with the content that the user is reading. Ads on Quora A person who is following a particular Space will be shown ads that are relevant to that topic. However, it may not be the case always. Many ads are also staged on this platform to increase the web traffic to their place. They charge for these ads in three different ways. The first one is CPA which is also known as Cost Per Action. Secondly, to get more conversions, they have another advertising strategy called CPC also known as Cost Per Click is made available for those who wants to get more traffic into the landing pages. Another one is CPM, which is the cost per thousand impressions. It targets those people who want increased impressions on their ads. Conclusion The factor that drew Quora to such greater heights and wide popularity is because of their vision to democratise knowledge in a way that is accessible to all. It is also completely crowdsourced and it thrives entirely on its user community. It is this mentality to share and grow that made Quora a social networking platform, a search engine and a very strong community that is as competent as Google simultaneously. One thing is sure from the business model of Quora, that it will continue to grow in future as well. This is mainly because of the fact that no technology can ever replace the uniqueness and capability of human beings. It is definitely an important takeaway from Quora to believe in yourself and understand that you are irreplaceable. FAQ Quora is a question-and-answer website founded by Adam D'Angelo, Charlie Cheever in 2009. Is Quora owned by Google? No, Quora is a privately held company. How many visitors does Quora have? Quora has around 300 million unique monthly visitors as of 2020. Must have tools for startups - Recommended by StartupTalky