Scaling Crowdsourcing Platforms

Existing and emerging companies are building their business models upon the participation of a crowd. Crowdsourcing business models are powerful because they are scalable. They have the capability to expand their business... [ view full abstract ]

Existing and emerging companies are building their business models upon the participation of a crowd. Crowdsourcing business models are powerful because they are scalable. They have the capability to expand their business model and grow its revenues significantly without equally increasing its cost base. While some organizations demonstrate initial success in employing crowdsourcing, scaling a crowdsourcing platform is challenging. This article tackles the challenge that confronts every crowdsourcing platform: How to scale a crowdsourcing platform and the underlying business model? We present the results of our analysis of over 30 crowdsourcing platforms to shed light on different strategies to scale up crowd-based businesses.