eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Digital consumers today consist of much younger generations compared with that of five years ago. Some mobile applications now target users who are even below four years old, and very often, their parents are customers as well. It is challenging for companies to find suitable monetization models for digital products that are children facing due to legal and ethical limitations. Since the content delivery platform has now expanded to different mobile systems, companies are looking for other business models other than advertising for children's products. Innovation is needed from not only the product development perspective, but also the business creation perspective.

Design thinking is regarded as the engine of creativity under the environment of extreme ambiguity. This thesis uses design thinking as the methodology to develop a business model for a digital product. Human centered, prototyping driven and positive towards ambiguity mindset goes throughout the case study.

The monetization model developed from this thesis can be used as a tool for companies that focus on children's user experience as well as parent's willingness to pay. It takes into consideration of parenting style and children's usage behaviors. By clustering different types of users, companies can identify their key customers easily, meanwhile tailoring their strategies for different customer clusters.

In addition, the business creation journey is generalized in the end of the thesis as "the innovative business design process". It starts from the human-centric angle, takes into account of the contemporary technology development process, and integrates practices from different domains.