Strategy: Business models
Showing 435 articles for Strategy: Business models.
Five side hustles you can start today for free
Noah Kagan
June 10, 2021
Business models
8
Growth hacking
6
B2C sales
5
- The skills people already compliment you on are your business.
- Flipping works best when you stick to categories you understand.
- Commit 12 months to any side hustle and you will hit $1,000/month.
Wix: How a website builder became the internet's plumbing for small businesses
Business Breakdowns
May 26, 2021
Business models
9
Paid ads
7
Case studies
6
- A horizontal platform can outspend every vertical competitor on marketing.
- Wix rebuilt from Flash to HTML5 in 2012 — betting the company on mobile.
- Freemium plus sticky cohorts creates a compounding subscription flywheel.
Eight proven software business categories from $100M in AppSumo sales
Noah Kagan
May 24, 2021
Business models
9
MVP & prototyping
6
Niche selection
5
- Eight software niches validated by $100M in real marketplace sales
- Build in a proven category, then carve your own niche within it
- Stock assets and templates generate serious revenue with little code
China tech in 2021: consumer brands, community group buying, and EVs
Acquired
May 5, 2021
Business models
10
Iteration & feedback loops
8
Growth hacking
7
- Chinese brands now iterate physical products like software — weekly new SKUs.
- Rural China's billion consumers are the next trillion-dollar platform battleground.
- Every major Chinese internet company is now also an EV company.
How Twilio built a developer moat in communications infrastructure
Business Breakdowns
April 28, 2021
Business models
9
Case studies
8
Pricing strategy
6
- Lower gross margins can be a moat, not a weakness
- Winning developers creates lock-in no competitor can easily copy
- Usage-based TAM dwarfs traditional seats-times-price assumptions
Private podcasting: Enterprise communication beyond traditional broadcasting
Startups For the Rest of Us
April 27, 2021
Business models
8
Product-market fit
7
Content marketing
5
- Private podcasting is gated audio for employees and members, not a technology shift but a job-to-be-done alternative to email and meetings.
- Apple's 30% subscription model attracts easy-button creators but locks out brand builders who need subscriber data and funnel integration.
- Castos accelerated 50% growth by focusing on onboarding quality and bug fixes instead of shipping features—zero churn unlocks expansion revenue.
Best business ideas from entrepreneurs: boring niches to crypto
Noah Kagan
April 26, 2021
Business models
8
Community building
6
- Boring, reliable industries beat trendy ideas almost every time.
- Mass remote work is the biggest blue ocean opportunity in 50 years.
- Courses are evolving into hybrid agency-communities with shared goals.
Writing a last-day launch email that overcomes inertia
Joanna Wiebe
April 25, 2021
Business models
9
Bootstrapping
7
- Last-day emails still need to overcome inertia, not just recap the offer
- Open with an instant CTA, then reframe what the reader is really waiting on
- The 'can it wait?' structure uses dream-state specificity to break hesitation
Cinnabon's omnichannel brand strategy: franchising, licensing, and the equity bucket
Business Breakdowns
April 21, 2021
Business models
9
Branding
8
Case studies
7
- Over 70% of Cinnabon's $1–2B revenue comes from licensing, not restaurants
- Licensing kills brand value if franchise base is left to wither
- The aroma, the ooey centre, and mall placement were all deliberate design choices
Hiring Entrepreneurs, Tax Strategy, Side Projects, and Disruptive Innovation
Startups For the Rest of Us
April 20, 2021
Business models
8
Business structure
7
Hiring & recruitment
6
- C Corp vs. LLC: QSBS tax benefits only make sense if you plan a clean five-year exit.
- Attract founders-in-waiting with hefty profit sharing and market-rate salaries, not equity scraps.
- Bootstrappers win through capital efficiency and speed, not by pursuing disruptive innovation technology.
How to write effective in-app tour copy
Joanna Wiebe
April 18, 2021
Business models
9
Customer discovery
7
Unit economics
6
- Users who've paid still need persuading to actually use your product
- Feature-advantage-benefit framework structures each modal around user goals
- Treat tour copy as iterative — beta feedback should rewrite your modals
Five post-pandemic business ideas backed by search data
Noah Kagan
April 10, 2021
Business models
8
MVP & prototyping
6
Bootstrapping
5
- Pre-sell five spots before spending a dollar on supplies.
- Mobile and pop-up models beat fixed locations for low overhead.
- IV drip bars and rage rooms are growing categories with few competitors.
How Disney built a sustainable brand ecosystem through strategic acquisitions
Masters of Scale
March 23, 2021
Business models
9
Case studies
8
Long-term planning
6
- Keep acquired brands separate — merging them destroys the value you bought
- Shanghai Disneyland: localise culture, don't export it, for faster loyalty
- A diverse ecosystem survives shocks that kill a monoculture
Bootstrapper news: Twitter Spaces, Indie.VC closing, and Shopify platform risk
Startups For the Rest of Us
March 16, 2021
Business models
8
Bootstrapping
7
Niche selection
5
- Shopify demanded 20% back-revenue from app developers dating to 2019.
- Indie.VC's closure shows how hard bootstrapper-friendly fund terms are to sustain.
- Platform-dependent businesses get discounted valuations — acquirers know the risk.
Buying a $9,500 niche website and giving it to a subscriber
Noah Kagan
March 4, 2021
Business models
8
Content marketing
6
Case studies
6
- Boring, untouched niche sites can be the best acquisition targets
- A 90-day plan doubled revenue by adding affiliates and Pinterest posts
- Chasing uninteresting opportunities leads to failure — and relief