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Table Of Contents: Business Model

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General Business Model Information   

The Business Model Canvas

Part Two: Design Your Business Model

Part Three: Test And Verify Your Business Model

Reverse How You Develop Your Business Model For Better Results

Success Depends On Knowing Which Market Type You Enter

What Does Customer-Centered Mean?

Which Is More Important: The Product Or Market?

The New Startup Model 

The Customer Development Manifesto

Prepare To Deal With New Regulations On Privacy Protection

Customer Segment

Why Customers Not Products Drive Successful Companies

Customer Relationships

Positioning: A Competitive Breakthrough

7 Ways To Sell Subscriptions

Which Is More Important: The Product Or Market?

 The question of which is more important, product or market, is an ongoing question, and the answer depends on who to talk to. It’s a question every entrepreneur has to address before and during the development of a startup.

Author Tren Griffin at 2sig.com (Andreessen Horowitz et al.) put together some great “answers” from people who would know.

Why markets matter more than anything else. (Investment approach).

“Give me a giant market, always.” You find a great market, and you build multiple companies in that market—author Dan Valentine.

Looking at all three parts: people, market, and innovative products. All three are required for success. Note, you can’t change a market, but you can change your product. “By Andy Radcliffe

Founders have to choose a market long before they know whether they will reach a product-market fit. Chris Dixon.

What is product-market fit?

It’s a verified Value Proposition. Customers buy your product and like it so much, they tell others, giving you organic sales.

“To reach delighted customers isn’t just product-market fit, but product-market scale” Casey Winters.

“getting the product right means finding product-market fit. It does not mean learning the product or launching the product. It means getting to the point where the market excepts your product and wants more of it. Fred Wilson

When you are not at product-market fit, focus on getting to market-product fit. Change whatever you need to do. Forget everything else until you get product-market fit.

Marc Andreessen argues that any startup’s life can be divided into two parts: Before product-market fit and after a product-market fit.

How do you reach product-market fit?

You can reach product-market fit serendipity, but the process to get to serendipity is incredibly consistent. Andy Radcliffe First, you need to define and test your value hypothesis. Once proved, move on to your growth hypothesis.

“ in the early days of a product, don’t focus on making it so robust. Find product-market fit first, then harden“ Jeff Lawson.

Product market fit is not a magic elixir. It signifies an important milestone that is necessary but not sufficient for success. Once you have product-market fit, you must still find a sustainable growth model and create a moat against competitors.

Until you get product-market fit, you want to live as long as possible and iterate as quickly as possible. Sam Altman.

How can you tell whether you do or don’t have a product-market fit?

You have product-market fit if you have organic sales, media attention, cash building up, etc. Sales without advertising require huge word-of-mouth, which requires delighted customers.

A problem for entrepreneurs is  “they don’t have actually have a product-market fit when they think they do. Alex Schultz.

Is first to market critical?

“ first to market seldom matters. “ “First to product-market fit is usually the long-term winner. “  Once a company has achieved product-market fit, it is challenging to dislodge it, even with a better or less expensive product“ Andy Rachleff.

Note: Neither Apple, Google, and others were first to market.

What are some product-market myths?

  1. Product-market fit is always a discrete, big bang event.

  2. It’s plenty obvious when you have product-market fit.

  3. Once you achieve a product-market fit, you can’t lose it.

  4. Once you have product-market fit, you don’t have to sweat the competition.

  5. Markets and competition are always changing. Constant adoption is therefore required to retain product-market fit. Ben Horowitz.

 What problems are caused when you only think you have product-market fit?

One of the most common ways startups fail is premature scaling. This means spending money on growth before achieving product-market fit. Sales from the early adopters are not the mainstream market. Startups need 2 to 3 times longer to validate their market than most founders expect. Steve Blank

Conclusion

Product-market fit is a critical goal for every startup. While the definition appears simple, the ability to get there, know when you have it, and how to exploit it is complex. Where are you at in this journey to product-market fit? Before, on the way,  or After?

Part Three: Test And Verify Your Business Model

You have analyzed all the elements of your business model and designed a business model that appears to offer an excellent opportunity. But, you still only have a hypothesis, and your risk is real. The next step is to test, iterate, and verify your business model.

Following is an example of why you can’t take your business model for granted, even if the model had proved it works, When JC Penny was in trouble they hired Ron Johnaonk the man who designed the Apple stores which have been an enormous success, How could they go wrong? He laid out the store design into various boutiques rather than the traditional “boys department,” etc..

Plus, because the concept was so successful (at Apple), they modified all their stores within a  year, which cost millions of dollars, But customers hated the new store and loss of “bargain items,” sales declined rather than increased. A little over a year later, they fired Ron Johnson and looked to go back to their old way and search for another business model.

A lot of the information here is from Seve Blank, entrepreneur, and professor at Sanford University, and comes from his book,  “the Four Steps to the Epiphany.” The point of testing and verifying the business model is to move away from the standard product development model and move to a customer development model. Having a product isn’t sufficient, You need to verify you have paying customers and a financial model that works.

The cost of getting the business model wrong is devastating, and not all startups are the same. (See our article on market types).  This test and verification process looks at two areas: customer discovery and customer validation,

In Customer Discovery you are trying to find out who the customers are for your product and if the product or service you solve is vital to the customer. nOt just the early adopters but to the mainstream customers, You are developing a sales model that can be replicated and can drive customer demand,

In Customer Validation you are developing a sales pathway for sales and marketing, You are trying to prove you have found customers and a market that is positive about your product or service.model and the process is repeatable

These two steps will:

  • Verify your market

  • Locate your customers and identify the economic buyer

  • Test the perceived value of the product or service

  • Establish your pricing and channel strategy

  • Establish your sales cycle and process

When you have completed both of these steps, you can move on to executing your business strategy and model,

 

Part Two: Design Your Business Model

Now that you have a basic business model put together, you do not want to accept that design as the best one automatically. Your goal is to find the best business model. The one that will set you apart from your competitors, deliver the most value, and offer the best revenues and profits. The business model canvas allows you to design alternative models easily by changing the data points in the individual modules and create an entirely new business model.

There are many, many examples of this design process. For example, Walmart changed the design of its business model several times before arriving at its current model. They had to reframe the definition of a big-box retailer. Even today, they are continuing to change their model with the economy, customer characteristics, and technology.

Another example is Southwest airlines. They were bankrupt trying to use the traditional hub and spoke business model of all the other airlines. They decided to redesign their business model and fly direct from San Antonio to Dallas or Houston and land at the suburban airports with far fewer gate fees. Passengers loved it as well as the suburban location was preferable because most of the business occurred in the suburbs. They also added some “viral marketing” like stewardess dressed in hotpants and great food and drink, Today, they are the only airline that has been profitable every year, since they redesigned their business model.

These examples point out three important things to remember when you are designing your business model (per Alexander Osterwald);

  • The product is essential, but not sufficient; you need a business model that makes it work

  • You can’t just copy the business model used by a competitor

  • A business model design is not proof it will work. It is a hypothesis and, therefore, a risk, and has to be tested and verified.

New products and services are opportunities that seem to get everyone excited. But, innovative business models also offer great opportunities. How could you redesign your business model to increase your value proposition?

 

The Business Model Canvas

Creating an in-depth business plan for new, developing companies is not realistic. When I started work at Honeywell in 1968, one of my first tasks was to work on was the yearly, one, five, and twenty-five-year business plan for the commercial division. Honeywell had been in business for almost a hundred years, so they had lots of data. Today, things are changing too quickly, and for startups, just trying to get a business plan that works may take many iterations. That is why Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas makes so much sense,

The business model canvas illustrates the nine fundamental drivers of the business model. And how they all work together to deliver value to the customer, including revenues and profits to the company. Also, because it is an illustration on one page, the entire business model is visible and defined so everyone can participate in the discussions about how best to deliver value to the customer.  

We are going to look at the business model canvas in three parts. First, the nine elements that make up the model. Second the “Design” aspects or capabilities you can use to experiment with the models until you get what you think is the right strategy and composition (referred to as a hypothesis). Third, the requirement initially proposed by Steve Blank, entrepreneur, and professor at Standford on how to get out of the office and into the market so you can test and iterate your hypotheses until you achieve product-market fit.  

Following is a description of the nine critical elements of the business model.

1  Value Proposition. This is, of course, your product or service, but it is why customers will buy and pay for your product or service or both.

2 Customer Segments. These are the people who will buy or use your products and services, This could be one segment or multiple customer segments. And it could be for multiple kinds of jobs, pain points or potential gains,

3 Channels. This is how you are going to sell and deliver your products and services to your customers (retail stores, internet, etc.)

4 Customer Relationships. This is how you are going to find, get, keep and grow your customers base,

5 Revenue Streams. This  is how you are going to capture revenues from buyers and users of your products and services (one time sales, subscriptions, etc.)

6 Key Resources. What resources are you going to need to make and deliver your products and services (physical facilities and equipment, Intellectual Property, human resources, and financial resources)?

7 Key Activities. What key activities must be done perfectly if you are going to deliver the value proposition you promised your customers. (e.g., Ikea must continuously find well designed, contemporary furniture that can be broken down and packaged into a box for customers to take home with then from the store,  

8 Partnerships. IN today’s world, we are not going to do everything ourselves, So, in addition to suppliers, who will you get to help you execute your business model.

9 Cost Structure. Knowing the eight elements above, what are your costs going to be to fulfill your business model?

These are the things you control. There are also four things not included in the canvas above, but which issues you will have to deal with when you design or modify your business model. These are the competition, the government, the industry, and the market. These issues will be dealt with here separately.

 

Prepare To Deal With New Regulations On Privacy Protection

Starting on January 1, Americans – or at least 40 millions of them living in California – now have a comprehensive online privacy protection law in place called CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). Just like it’s European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) counterpart, which was passed in 2018. CCPA will eventually extend far beyond the State of California and reach the entire nation. 

Professionals and experts believe the odds are pretty strong that CCPA will be the foundation of privacy regulations in many other states or even U.S. federal online privacy law.

CCPA has established much stronger rights for Californians concerning their online data. For example, California residents now have the power to order any company NOT to SELL their data to any third-party for any purpose without their consent. Californian consumers can also ask just about every company that has collected their data and anybody else with which the company has shared it, to delete the information from the company’s record.

What Can a Business Do?

Under the newly enforced regulation, Californian consumers are entitled to know the categories of information that companies have collected and able to see any specific bits of the data, such as postal address and browsing history. Although CCPA is meant for consumers residing in the state of California, most companies will find it difficult to pinpoint the exact location of every single consumer. It is just the nature of the Internet that no one knows where a user is. Some businesses will have to apply CCPA across the board simply because they cannot effectively distinguish between Californian consumers and those from other states.

Another thing to consider is that Californian consumers have the right to take legal action for unlawful use of their online data in any form, so failure to comply may lead to disastrous consequences on companies’ part. CCPA applies to any for-profit entity which does business in California, collects consumers’ data, and meets any of the following thresholds:

  • Generates an annual gross revenue of more than $25 million
  • Trades (buys or sells) personal information of at least 50,000 consumers or households, or
  • Earns more than 50% of annual revenue from selling consumers’ data

The thresholds may appear to target medium-to-large-sized companies, but many small businesses and even startups can quickly meet one or more of the limits. But then again, this is not the end of the world. Online data privacy regulation has always been a hot topic over the years, and CCPA is the logical first step into the culmination of the discussion. There are several things businesses can do to ensure compliance without sacrificing profitability.

Read the fine print

Unless you have an executive team to do it for you, it is always best to try and understand CCPA yourself. This way, you can make notes of the things you don’t fully comprehend so that you can ask the more experienced legal professional for help later. While you’re at it, pay attention to the following rights granted to Californian consumers:

  •  the rights to know what personal information is collected about them
  •  the rights to know whether the personal information is being sold or disclosed to any third-party and who the party third is
  • the rights to decline the sale of personal information
  • the rights to access the personal information
  • the rights to receive equal price and services, regardless of how they exercise their privacy rights

And in the case of loss of personal information due to theft or other causes, California consumers have the right to seek damages.

Understand what personal information your business collects

As obvious as it may seem, many companies are not fully aware of the kinds of personal data their own businesses collect from consumers. Some probably don’t know that their businesses collect data at all. This is most often seen in startups where the focus is mainly on growing the business. Privacy regulation is likely considered an obstacle in growth, but now they cannot just ignore CCPA for the consequences can be severe.

Have your business partners read the law too

If you run a reasonably sized company, chances are you have multiple employees (or departments) to handle various tasks from bookkeeping to marketing, from networking to customer service. To properly implement CCPA and ensure compliance, make sure everyone in the company also reads the bill. Your officers, executives, and legal teams should understand the law better than anybody. Know the potential risk and craft a plan to avoid penalties.

You can read the full text here.

Privacy policy and regulation have the reputation of being the dark sides of business conduct. The reality is that many companies most likely takes advantage of personal consumer data for marketing or downright additional revenue by selling the information to third-party entities such as advertisers. CCPA is trying to get rid of the murkiness and provide a clear path for both companies and consumers to play it fair and square.

 

 

7 Ways To Sell Subscriptions

This information is from John  Warrillow’s, book: The automatic customer: Create subscriptions in any industry and from Zuora’s blog,

1 Think 10x vs. 10%

Customers are aware that a subscription is more valuable to you than a one-time purchase. So, to get hem to commit, you need to give then a significant return for their investment., They are unlikely to subscribe to a “Save 10%” but might if they could enjoy 10x the value of the alternative.

Net; “provide a ridiculous amount of value.”

2 Appeal to their Rational Side

The subscription model has gone mainstream, and people are demanding a better value than the alternative. Subscriptions are sold by appealing to convenience — especially B2B.

3 Give Customers an Ultimatum

Most customers would prefer to keep their freedom and buy your product a la carte, on an as-needed basis. YOu might consider making a subscription the ONLY alternative (they have) you sell, You can’t buy one movie from Netflix.

4 Give Them a Freemium Option

Give them a free taste of what they will get from a full-blown subscription. Magazine publishers found it virtually impossible to sell first-time visitors a subscription to an information product (e.g., magazine or membership website) until they have first opted into a free email newsletter to sample the value of the content,

Once they opt into the free newsletter, they convert to paid at a rate of 3% to 30% per year depending on the number of offers are presented and how carefully the publisher manages the list (weeds out undeliverable addresses and those who have opted out.)

In this freemium, you want to leave plenty of value off the tale to instill a sense of intrigue about what the customer will get from subscribing. A good taster gives just enough to access the product but leaven plenty of temptations behind the curtain

5 Offer a Trial

If your product or service is hard to describe or has to be used to be understood, it (the benefits) consider offering a trial subscription. Unlike freemium, usually available forever, a trial has a start and end date.

6 Offer Your Subscription as a Gift

The problem with a gift is that it is forgotten in a few days, but if you give a subscription, it expresses that appreciation over time, Standard Coca offers 1, 3, and 6-month subscriptions. They get a 75% increase in sales for Christmas and Valentine’s day. BUT, gift subscriptions are difficult to renew, but you can use them to top off your regular subscribers,

7 Set Fire To The Platform

One of the best things about a subscription company is it is always on, always available. Customers love it, but it is challenging to sell a subscription if it doesn’t change from day to day, why buy today?

One thing to do is artificially simulate a burning platform that causes the customer to act to avoid losing something (they keep thinking about it but never do it). You could put a compelling offer out there (e.g., buy the first year for half price) through the end of the month (BUT only for those interested but not signed, don’t advertise it, use it discreetly.

 

The Customer Development Manifesto

 

There are 14 rules that makeup customer development manifesto. I have summarized them from Steve Blank’s book, “The Startup Owners’ Manual,” This a much longer post than I would like, but I think it is vital that you look at them in total.  Learn them and use them. You will be glad you did.

Rule1 There are no facts inside your building. So get outside

The founder’s job is to translate the vision and hypotheses into facts. Facts live outside the building where future customers live and work. You can’t delegate first-hand experiences.  Only the founder can embrace the feedback, react to it, and adeptly make the decisions necessary to change or pivot key business model components.

Rule 2: Customer development is useless unless the product development organization can iterate the product with speed and agility.

It would be best if you paired customer development with Agile development. If you build the product without customer development (input), you will have a product that will be difficult if not impossible to change later, 

Agile engineering is designed to take customer input and deliver a product that iterates readily around a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or its minimum feature set,

Rule 3: Failure is an integral part of the search

Failures in an existing company are an exception. IN a startup your are searching, not executing, and the only wah to find the right path is tot try lots of experiments and take a lot of wrong turns, Failure is part of the process, But failures are not failures, per se. Still, part of the learning process, If you are afraid to fail in a startup, you’re destined to do so.

Rule 4: Make continuous iterations and  pivots

Learning means making frequent iterations and pivots, A pivot is a substantive change in one or more of the nine boxes of the business model canvas (like changing from a freemium to a subscription model). An iteration is a minor change in the business model (like a small price change.) Pivots are driven by learning and insights; Founders should not hesitate to make changes,

Rule 5: No business plan survives first contact with customers so use a business model canvas

Once the business plan has delivered financing, the business plan is useless. Founders have to realize that the business plan is only a collection of unproven assumptions. The difference between a static business  plan and a dynamic business model could be the difference between success and failure,

The business model describes the flow and visual overview of the critical components of the company:

  • Value Proposition 
  • Customer Segments 
  • Channels
  • Customer Relationships
  • Revenue Streams
  • Key Activities
  • Key Resources
  • Kay Partners
  • Cost Structure

Use the business model canvas as a scorecard by posting your hypotheses and modify them as you test and validate your facts.

Rule 6: Design Experiments and Tests to Validate Your Hypotheses 

To turn hypotheses (guesses) into facts, founders need to get out of the building and test them in front of customers. Your tests should be short, simple, and objective pass/fail tests. You are looking for strong signals. Ask yourself, what’s a simple test I can run and a simple measurement that will give me a pass/fail.  Try to use a mockup if possible, to save time and money.

Rule 7: Agree on Market Type, It Changes Everything.

Not all startups are the same. The relationship between the product and the market has different requirements.  The market types are as follows:

  • A new product into an existing market
  • A new product into a new market
  • A new product into an existing market  (as a low-cost or niche entrant) 
  • Cloning a business model that’s successful in another country

See the information on Market Types for more information,

Rule 8: Startup Metrics Differ From Those in Existing Companies

Startups used traditional metrics for a long time. We now know that startup metrics should focus on tracking the startup’s [progress converting guesses and hypotheses into facts rather than measuring the execution of the static plan. Do this until you are ready to scale the company,  Following are the kinds of metrics you should be looking at:

  • Do the minimum product features resonate with customers?
  • Who is the customer and have the customer hypotheses been validated?
  • Customer-validation questions might include” average order size. Customer lifetime value, the average time to first order, rate of sales  pipeline growth, improvement inclose rate and revenue per salesperson
  • Cash-burn rate, number of months’ worth of cash left, short-term hiring plans
  • Amount of time left until you reach cash-flow break-even.

Rule 9: Fast Decision-Making, Cycle Time, Speed and Tempo

Speed matters because bank balances are the only absolute that declines every day. The sooner iterations and pivots get done, the more likely you will find a scalable business. The most significant impediment fo cycle time is admitting you are on the wrong track, and you need to make a decision. And yes, uncertainty is a problem you have to overcome. Therefore you have to think about decisions as reversible. Tempo refers to all levels at the company including investors,

Rule 10: It’s All About Passion

Without passion, the startup is dead before it begins. Successful founders are wired for chaos, uncertainty, and speed. They are focused on customer needs and delivering a great product.

Rule 11: Startup Job Titles Are Very Different from a Large Comp[any’s

I an existing company, titles reflect the way tasks are organized to execute in a known business model,  Startups demand execs who are comfortable with uncertainty, chaos, and change — maybe daily. For example, rather than business development, sales, and marketing, the tile might be Customer Development Team.

Rule 12: Preserve All Cash Until Needed. Then Spend

Once you find that repeatable and scalable business model, spend all you can to make the company grow. But, you need repeatable sales, not just one-offs like friends and acquiesces, you need a pattern or pathway you can replicate. Is your return on investment higher than your costs? If your goal is to get outside funding, you need to deliver 10x the investment.

Rule 13: Communicate and Share Learning

You need to share everything you learned on the outside of the building with everyone inside the building. Technology enables us now to share information in real-time through management tools and dashboards. One way to do this is with a daily company-development blog which will let everyone keep track of the entire development process (hypotheses, tests, results, people talked with, questions, etc.)

Rule 14: Customer Development Success Begins With Buy-In

To be successful, everyone on the team needs to understand ad agree that the Customer Development process is different. Everyone must accept the process and realize that its fluid and a search for the business model. Everyone needs to understand and agree that the old way of executing a business plan doesn’t work for startups.

Summary

Following these rules will help you achieve a successful company. Its the only approach for web-based businesses where you need constant customer feedback and product iteration. Also, doing things quickly and conserving cash enables you to pivot as necessary.

 

 

The New Startup Model 

According to Steve Blank, entrepreneur, and professor at Stanford, a startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model.

A little history. Until 1950, the traditional way to start a new business was to use traditional tools and methods. But, as entrepreneurship grew, and many startups failed, entrepreneurs realized that startups are not just small versions of large companies.

Large companies knew and understood who the customers were, their business model, the problems involved in their company, markets, and industry. Startups, on the other hand, we’re searching for a repeatable and profitable business model.

The startup model required different rules, roadmaps, skill sets, and tools to minimize the risks and optimize the entrepreneur’s chances for success.

Some of these new tools include

  • agile development, an incremental and interactive approach to engineering that allows product development to pivot to customer and market feedback,

  • A business model design which replaces statistic business plans with a nine-box map of critical elements,

  • New tools for creating and fostering winning ideas

  • Lean Startup which allows the customer and agile development  to process simultaneously

  • Lean  user interface designs to  improve web/mobile interface and conversion rates

  • Venture and entrepreneur finances were attractive to managed funds, which freed up innovation.

These processes and tools allow startups to refine and scale their ideas faster and more affordably.

Different types of entrepreneurship

The main types of startups we are concerned with here are:

Small business entrepreneurship: the 5.9 million small businesses that make up 99% of all U.S. companies and employ 50% of all nongovernment workers. Most of thee entrepreneurs define success as making a profit, not build a 100 million dollar business,

Scalable startups are entrepreneurs that start a company believing their vision will change the world and generate 100s of millions of dollars in sales. They are looking for a scalable business model and require venture capital.

Buyable startups are relatively new With the advent of developing low-cost apps, startups can fund themselves (often on credit cards) and raise small amounts of money, The goal is to get acquired by large companies.

 

Positioning: An Important Way to Differentiate Your Brand

SaaS companies are no longer unique and most of these companies have lots of SaaS competitors with similar services, This makes it difficult to break out and get attention.

Getting attention is similar to the problem in the ‘70s and ‘80s when getting through the media noise almost impossible. Marketing ROIs were getting expensive. Then, JackTrout wrote a book about “Positioning.” The idea of positioning is to find and take a unique position in the customer’s mind. For example, there were many car rental companies at that time, all fighting each other.   Hertz was the acknowledged leader. Avis realized that service was an essential outcome people wanted, so they positioned themselves as being #2, so “We Try Harder,” which propelled them into number 2 and above the crowd.

Many SaaS companies are facing that same competitive environment today. Therefore it’s time to take a look at your competitive position. 

In an article by Yasmine de Aranda, from Martet8, she stated you have to ask the key question, “Why should a prospect choose you over the competitors”? You need a compelling reason for them to buy from you. Remember, they don’t care about your awesome company until they care about what you can do for them.

The following are some questions you need to create your positioning statement.

1 What data collection and monitoring procedures have you designed to help you get and analyze customer information? Don’t rely on your instincts to generalizations. You will need this data to help you test, adjust and validate your assumptions as you create your positioning statement.

2 Get a detailed understanding of your customers and the outcomes they want. What different outcomes do they want? Have they tried alternative solutions? What concerns do they have? With this kind of data, you can begin to profile the customers you want.

3 Look at your competitors through your customer’s eyes. Look at both competitors and indirect competitors. Look at their positioning and strategy. What outcomes, if any, are they touting?

4 Measure your positioning strategy by sales results. For example, the number of leads per month, the number of qualified leads per month, the time to close, churn rate changes, the average cost to acquire customers and average lifetime value.

 Don’t just write down the answers. Ask your customers for the answers. The right position will get you increased responses and conversions, a shorter buying cycle, higher retention, and scalability.