Where’s the Value Created

A few weeks ago I mentioned something similar but I think it is important to understand that value in a startup and established companies isn’t always obvious. There are many different ways to create value and the public perception of how money is made by a certain company can often be good to obfuscate the real value being created. Let’s look at a few examples:

• Someone once told me the market capitalization of airlines is equal to their frequent flier points. Meaning, one significant way airlines make money is by selling frequent flier miles to other companies like credit card issuers.
• There’s an Internet company that recently received a good deal of bad press about their selling social media data. One of the strongest ways they make money is by acting as a credit score of sorts for email addresses, even though you’d never know from their main website.
• In Atlanta there are several retail store fronts in expensive areas for a company that helps people find apartments. Of course, they pitch the service as free and make money by referral fees from the apartments. This one is a bit more obvious but it shows that there are non-obvious ways to build a business.

What else? What are some other examples of non-obvious ways companies create value?