Discovering New Digital Business Model Types - a Study of Technology Startups from the Mobility Sector

In the 1990s, the broad diffusion of the internet allowed firms such as Amazon, eBay, and Google to invent new digital business models. Since then, research has formalized recurring configurations as digital business model types, still frequently being used to analyze existing business models and develop new ones. Now, the next wave of digital transformation – enabled by ongoing improvements in processing power, the miniaturization of hardware, and ubiquitous wireless connectivity – is again driving innovation. For instance, in the mobility sector, startups such as Uber, Turo, and Streetline have formed business logics that cannot be understood with existing types. Therefore, we identified and formalized new business model configurations by systematically analyzing a comprehensive data set of technology startups from the US mobility sector. We found that, in order to adequately account for the new digital logics, 14 digital business model types must be added to existing collections: app developer, autonomous products/robots manufacturer, data analytics provider, integrator of thirdparty services, IT-enabled self-service provider, IT-guided service provider, manufacturer of connected physical products, manufacturer of connectivity devices for physical products, mobilized service provider, P2P goods sharing platform, P2P information sharing community, P2P service provision platform, seller of sensor information, and sensor-enabled service innovator.