Why comma.ai's Business Model is so successful?

Comma develops and markets a self-driving kit that allows the car to run automatically. The Company's goal is to show that making driverless vehicles could be done relatively cheaply using off-the-shelf components and existing vehicles.

Social impact:

Life changing: self-actualization

Emotional: provides access, design/aesthetics, attractiveness

Functional: saves time, simplifies, reduces risk, organizes, connects, reduces effort, avoids hassles, reduces cost, informs

Add-on:

An additional item offered to a customer of a primary product or service is referred to as an add-on sale. Depending on the industry, add-on sales may generate substantial income and profits for a firm. For example, when a customer has decided to purchase the core product or service, the salesman at an automotive dealership will usually offer an add-on sale. The pattern is used in the price of new software programs based on access to new features, number of users, and so forth.

Aikido:

The aikido business model is often characterized as using a competitor's strength to get an edge over them. This is accomplished through finding weaknesses in a competitor's strategic position. In addition, it adds to marketing sustainability by exposing rivals' flaws, finding internal and external areas for development, and attracting consumers via specific product offers that deviate from the norm.

Augmenting products to generate data:

Due to advancements in sensors, wireless communications, and big data, it is now possible to collect and analyze massive quantities of data in a wide range of settings, from wind turbines to kitchen appliances to intelligent scalpels. These data may be utilized to improve asset design, operation, maintenance, and repair or improve how an activity is carried out. Such skills, in turn, may serve as the foundation for new services or business models.

Blue ocean strategy:

The blue ocean approach is predicated on the premise that market limits and industry structure are not predetermined and may be reconfigured via the actions and attitudes of industry participants. This is referred to as the reconstructionist perspective by the writers. Assuming that structure and market boundaries exist solely in managers' thoughts, practitioners who subscribe to this perspective avoid being constrained by actual market structures. To them, more demand exists, primarily untapped. The core of the issue is determining how to produce it.

Codifying a distinctive service capability:

Since their inception, information technology systems have aided in automating corporate operations, increasing productivity, and maximizing efficiency. Now, businesses can take their perfected processes, standardize them, and sell them to other parties. In today's corporate environment, innovation is critical for survival.

Digital:

A digital strategy is a strategic management and a business reaction or solution to a digital issue, which is often best handled as part of a broader company plan. A digital strategy is frequently defined by the application of new technologies to existing business activities and a focus on enabling new digital skills for their company (such as those formed by the Information Age and frequently as a result of advances in digital technologies such as computers, data, telecommunication services, and the World wide web, to name a few).

Direct selling:

Direct selling refers to a situation in which a company's goods are immediately accessible from the manufacturer or service provider rather than via intermediate channels. The business avoids the retail margin and any extra expenses connected with the intermediaries in this manner. These savings may be passed on to the client, establishing a consistent sales experience. Furthermore, such intimate touch may help to strengthen client connections. Finally, direct selling benefits consumers by providing convenience and service, such as personal demonstrations and explanations of goods, home delivery, and substantial satisfaction guarantees.

Disruptive trends:

A disruptive technology supplants an existing technology and fundamentally alters an industry or a game-changing innovation that establishes an altogether new industry. Disruptive innovation is defined as an invention that shows a new market and value network and ultimately disrupts an established market and value network, replacing incumbent market-leading companies, products, and alliances.

Experience:

Disrupts by offering a better understanding that customers are willing to pay for. Experience companies that have progressed may begin charging for the value of the transformation that an experience provides. An experienced company charges for the feelings consumers get as a result of their interaction with it.

Low cost:

A pricing strategy in which a business provides a low price in order to drive demand and increase market share. Additionally referred to as a low-price approach. The low-cost model has sparked a revolution in the airline industry. The end-user benefits from low-cost tickets as a result of a revenue strategy that seeks various sources of income. Ryanair was one of the first businesses to embrace this approach.

Mobile first behavior:

It is intended to mean that as a company thinks about its website or its other digital means of communications, it should be thinking critically about the mobile experience and how customers and employees will interact with it from their many devices. The term is “mobile first,” and it is intended to mean that as a company thinks about its website or its other digital means of communications, it should be thinking critically about the mobile experience and how customers and employees will interact with it from their many devices.

Open-source:

Compared to more centralized development methods, such as those usually employed by commercial software firms, the open-source model is more decentralized. Scientists see the open-source approach as an example of collaborative openness. Peer production is a fundamental concept of open-source software development, with deliverables such as source code, blueprints, and documentation made freely accessible to the public. The open-source software movement started as a reaction to the constraints imposed by proprietary programming. Since then, its ideas have extended to other areas, resulting in what is known as open cooperation. Typically, money is generated via services that complement the product, such as advising and maintenance.

Product innovation:

Product innovation is the process of developing and introducing a new or better version of an existing product or service. This is a broader definition of innovation than the generally recognized definition, which includes creating new goods that are considered innovative in this context. For example, Apple launched a succession of successful new products and services in 2001?the iPod, the iTunes online music service, and the iPhone?which catapulted the firm to the top of its industry.

Reverse engineering:

It is a legally sanctioned technique of duplicating a technology in which, rather than beginning from scratch, one starts with an existing product and works backward to determine how it works. Once the product's basic principle or core idea is established, the next stage is to replicate the same outcomes using other methods to prevent (legally prohibited) patent infringement. The cost of manufacturing is significantly lowered.

Self-service:

A retail business model in which consumers self-serve the goods they want to buy. Self-service business concepts include self-service food buffets, self-service petrol stations, and self-service markets. Self-service is available through phone, online, and email to automate customer support interactions. Self-service Software and self-service applications (for example, online banking apps, shopping portals, and self-service check-in at airports) are becoming more prevalent.

Selling of branded merchandise:

Merchandising, in the broadest definition, is any activity that helps sell goods to a retail customer. At the retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the range of goods offered for sale and the presentation of those products in a manner that piques consumers' attention and encourages them to make a purchase. Like the Mozilla Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation, specific open-source organizations offer branded goods such as t-shirts and coffee mugs. This may also be seen as an added service to the user community.

Skunkworks project:

A skunkworks project is one that is created by a small, loosely organized group of individuals who study and develop a project with the primary goal of radical innovation. The terminology arose during World War II with Lockheed's Skunk Works project. However, since its inception with Skunk Works, the phrase has been used to refer to comparable high-priority research and development initiatives at other big companies that include a small team operating outside of their regular working environment and free of managerial restrictions. Typically, the phrase alludes to semi-secretive technological initiatives, such as Google X Lab.

Subscription:

Subscription business models are built on the concept of providing a product or service in exchange for recurring subscription income on a monthly or annual basis. As a result, they place a higher premium on client retention than on customer acquisition. Subscription business models, in essence, concentrate on revenue generation in such a manner that a single client makes repeated payments for extended access to a product or service. Cable television, internet providers, software suppliers, websites (e.g., blogs), business solutions providers, and financial services companies utilize this approach, as do conventional newspapers, periodicals, and academic publications.

Sustainability-focused:

Companies that manufacture fast-moving consumer goods and services and are committed to sustainability do ecological impact assessments on their products and services. While research-based green marketing needs facts, green storytelling requires imagination and location. Employees responsible for the brand definition and green marketers collaborate with product and service designers, environmental groups, and government agencies.

Take the wheel:

Historically, the fundamental principles for generating and extracting economic value were rigorous. Businesses attempted to implement the same business concepts more effectively than their rivals. New sources of sustained competitive advantage are often only accessible via business model reinvention driven by disruptive innovation rather than incremental change or continuous improvement.

Technology trends:

New technologies that are now being created or produced in the next five to ten years will significantly change the economic and social landscape. These include but are not limited to information technology, wireless data transmission, human-machine connection, on-demand printing, biotechnology, and sophisticated robotics.