Business research.

The University of St. Gallen go-to-market study drew out four lessons for building Profila as a business.

Profila serves two sides, but only one should pay. Consumers already “pay” by disclosing data — charging them too would choke acquisition. Monetise the company side with graded subscriptions scaled to data volume and company size, and give the first companies free access to seed supply. Willingness to pay rises when Profila can prove the data is more accurate.

Two-sided platforms face a chicken-and-egg cold start — neither side joins without the other. The case recommends giving consumers stand-alone value first (the privacy education and awareness side), building a consumer base that then pulls companies in through network effects. It beats the costlier “Marquee” route of buying an anchor brand to draw the crowd.

A Zero-to-One market entry: win a strongly defined, privacy-sensitised segment before broadening — the way Facebook took one campus before the world. The case points to students as the ideal beachhead: tech-affine, already sensitised to data privacy, and the group most willing to register for control and transparency.

For a company, joining Profila is a seal of quality — a transparency certificate that becomes a competitive advantage and pressures rivals to follow. On top of the trust signal, companies gain accurate, self-declared data for sharper segmentation and more efficient branding. Value, here, is trust made legible.