Strategic Plan
Quora SWOT
Quora
Quora is a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers.
This sample strategic plan extract was prepared to demonstrate how a SWOT should succinctly summarise the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities
Plan submitted by:
Chris Fox
This sample strategic plan extract was prepared based on material suggested at:
- https://www.quora.com/What-is-Quoras-actual-SWOT-analysis-in-terms-of-it-being-a-startup, and
- https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-SWOT-analysis-on-Quora?__nsrc__=4
in combination with my own research an knowledge.
Analysis
Porter's Five Forces Analysis
Threat of substitutes
- Very likely to be displaced by Generative AI
Bargaining power of suppliers
Rivalry
Bargaining power of buyers
Threat of new entrants
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Opportunities
|
Threats
|
Insight Details
Large volumes of web/search traffic.
Ranked as
| Country | Percent of Visitors | Rank in Country |
|---|---|---|
 United States |
37.5% | 49 |
 India |
20.9% | 19 |
 United Kingdom |
4.9% | 54 |
 Canada |
4.0% | 45 |
 Japan |
3.0% | 220 |
(Source: Alexa, as at 17 October 2018)
Quora was receiving about 9 million unique visitors per month, according to Compete, before it was shut down.
A good reputation management system for recognising expertise
Note that this assertion has been roundly
Low signal to noise ratio
Lots of:
- Students trying to get their homework assignments done
- Poorly articulated questions
- Incorrectly categorised questions
- Duplication of questions and answers
The most popular answers are not necessarily the most correct answers
This is an almost universal problem on the internet.
Continued growth
- Could continue growing to become the leading site for Q&A and the main source to get authoritative answers
- There remain vast topic areas which have not yet been trapped.
Could be acquired
- Quora could be purchased by someone like LinkedIn (who already tried LinkedIn Answers), to enhance the reputation and publishing aspects of their business
Lots of competitors
- Google, Wikipedia, Siri
and Cortana could become more popular ways to ask and answer questions. - Amazon's Askville, Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, Stack Exchange network, Answerbag, etc. are direct competitors.
Could run out of money
Quora could run out of money before it becomes profitable and if it is unable to raise more funds.
Thus far, Quora has raised a total of $226M in funding over 4 rounds. The latest funding came from a Series D round on Apr 21, 2017. (Source:
Top contributors could abandon the site
This could be driven by problems like
- signal to noise ratio or
- increased competition.