Business Model Library

Business Model Library

Welcome to our business model library. Business models can be combined and recombined to create different ways of connecting with your customers and stakeholders over time. Our focus here is to explain why recurring revenue business models like SaaS and other as-a-service models that let companies create longer term continuous value and iterative learning with your customers. We compare these recurring models to other one-off or higher friction models that may result in misalignment with your customer over time. 

Each description below links to a detailed tear-down for how each model works for your company and for your customers.

Software as a Service

Software-as-a-Service:
Cloud-hosted software purchased as recurring revenue

Salesforce | Dropbox

Hardware-as-a-Service:
Giving access to hardware with maintenance and upgrades

Hilti | Vivint | Philips

Data-as-a-Service:
Data, data management, or analytics as a core or underlying asset

Bloomberg | Climate Corp

Use of a product is metered, customers are charged for total usage in a specific period

AWS | Magazino

Key features are made available for free with premium features made available after an upgrade

Linkedin | Slack

A platform for economic exchange between two user groups with or without a transaction fee

Didi | Airbnb | Etsy

A product, service,  membership or experience is offered to a customer for periodic use

Netflix | Birchbox | Mollybox

DTC

Direct-to-Consumer:
A direct relationship with a customer through digital marketing

Warby Parker | 3 Squirrels

The core product (the razor) is priced for uptake, while more money is made on the consumable (the blade)

Nespresso | Gilette

A group of consultants or skilled experts that deliver advice, counsel, or solutions for clients

McKinsey | Cooley | Accenture

Companies attract an audience  to predict or cultivate intent, then sell access to advertisers

Facebook | Google | Hearst

Firms charge a published predictable fixed price rather than by the hour or other variable pricing

FedEx | USPS

Infrastructure-as-a-Service:
Providers give users the ability to configure processing, storage, and networks through the cloud

AWS | Azure | Alibaba

MSP

Managed Services Providers:
Strategic partners take on, operationalize, transform, and optimize business operations

McKinsey | Cooley | Accenture

Platform-as-a-Service:
Providers give developers services to accelerate software deployment with reduced cost and complexity

AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku 

We have a long list of alternative capital types to explore, what do you think we should describe next?



Models-as-a-Service Providers: Pre-trained machine learning models over the internet  for free or for a fee.

OpenAI | MSFT | Amazon

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