Teaching Notes: WittyFeed, a digital startup fighting to survive

WittyFeed, a digital start-up founded in 2014, aimed to publish trending worldwide stories on its platform for the user’s entertainment. However, after scaling up and enjoying much success, its business model failed overnight. In total, 90% of its revenue came from advertisements, such as displays and banners, and the other 10% was from sponsored content through brands that paid to have their content featured on WittyFeed’s platform. WittyFeed attracted users through internet “influencers” who published WittyFeed’s stories on their Facebook pages. After achieving 120 million visitors worldwide and US$6m in revenues, in November 2018, overnight, Facebook suspended all accounts connected...