Strategy: Business models
Showing 435 articles for Strategy: Business models.
Make School: income share agreements and the future of higher education
Y Combinator
June 19, 2019
Business models
9
Founder interviews
7
Bootstrapping
5
- School only gets paid if graduates get jobs — every decision follows
- Elite education is a luxury good; 75% of Stanford students are top-income families
- The autodidact myth hides survivorship bias — most great engineers need structure
Why purpose-driven business is also smart business
Bill Gallagher
May 29, 2019
Business models
9
Pricing strategy
6
- Ethical sourcing, fair wages, and waste reduction directly increase profit.
- Purpose commands a price premium that holds in both up and down markets.
- Every turbulent, inefficient system is money leaving and risk accumulating.
Paying employees on demand: the PayActive earned wage access model
Bill Gallagher
February 20, 2019
Business models
9
Unit economics
7
Cash flow management
6
- Workers already earned their wages — why wait two weeks to access them?
- Employees save $150–$200/month by avoiding payday loans and overdraft fees.
- Employer retention rises 20–40% with zero change to their payroll cash flow.
John Bogle's philosophy on money, business, and a life well lived
Founders
February 4, 2019
Business models
9
Pricing strategy
8
Motivation
8
- Compounding costs destroy 80% of investment returns over a lifetime.
- Misaligned incentives explain every major financial scandal.
- Character, autonomy, and persistence outlast any amount of money.
Marc Andreessen's startup and career advice from his blog archive
Founders
December 11, 2018
Business models
9
Career planning and opportunity
7
Vision & mission
6
- Market beats team and product every time — without exception
- Treat your career as a risk portfolio, not a plan
- Edison didn't recognise the phonograph's value for months after inventing it
Blitzscaling: how the fastest-growing companies prioritise speed over efficiency
Bill Gallagher
October 31, 2018
Business models
9
Management
7
MVP & prototyping
5
- First to scale beats first to market in winner-take-most markets
- Four rules: ship embarrassing products, tolerate bad management, let fires burn, ignore customers
- Founders who can't grow as fast as their company become the ceiling, not the floor
Five tips for building a six-figure copywriting business
Noah Kagan
May 10, 2018
Business models
9
Content marketing
8
Pricing strategy
7
- Consulting kept Neville sharp — and funded the course that replaced it.
- Raising prices filters out bad clients and reveals true demand.
- Building small tools beats writing tutorials — Google rewards the result.
Scaling from $1M to $100M without burning out
Cameron Herold
December 2, 2017
Business models
9
Processes & SOPs
7
- Revenue solves all problems — hire for sales first
- Focus × Faith × Effort: at 80% each, still only 51% success
- Stop working nights; reduced capacity feels productive but isn't
How PayPal escaped competition using exponential growth
Masters of Scale
November 8, 2017
Business models
9
Growth hacking
7
Origin stories
6
- Winning competitions makes you excellent at the wrong things
- 7% daily user growth from 24 people beat eBay's payment product
- Burn $10M/month to outrun rivals — profitability can wait
Competitive analysis
YouTube
How SanDisk Competed Against Apple in the MP3 Market
Noah Kagan
September 6, 2017
Competitive analysis
10
Niche selection
9
Business models
6
- SanDisk became the world's second-largest MP3 player behind Apple.
- Microsoft's Zune failed by copying Apple's price and positioning.
- Win by owning segments a dominant player ignores, not their turf.
Why SpaceX Will Colonize Mars: Elon's Strategy and Vision
Founders
August 27, 2017
Business models
8
Case studies
8
Hiring & recruitment
5
- Musk slashed space launch costs from $380M to $60M through vertical integration and first-principles engineering.
- One million colonists on Mars requires economically viable transport—making tickets affordable is the key barrier.
- Mars combines species survival insurance with humanity's need for inspiration beyond problem-solving.
Focus on the essentials: lessons from In-N-Out and Apple
Noah Kagan
March 27, 2017
Business models
7
Productivity & habits
6
- In-N-Out and Apple built empires by ruthlessly cutting their offerings
- The 80/20 rule: double down on what works, remove everything else
- One area of purge — closet, content, calendar — unlocks clarity everywhere
How to make strategic partnerships work: lessons from manufacturing
Bill Gallagher
March 8, 2017
Business models
9
Supply chain
6
- Counterparts who lack parent-company authority can sink a deal late.
- A 40-year partnership survives by splitting geographic sandboxes cleanly.
- Suppliers can co-develop products and hand you the IP.
$200 million in projects with three employees using licensing and outsourcing
Bill Gallagher
February 1, 2017
Business models
9
Case studies
8
Outsourcing & delegation
6
- Own the patent, license everything — never build the operation yourself
- Distributors replace an entire sales team with zero headcount cost
- Island nations buying waste-drying licenses as appreciating investments
Finding your inside advantage: a four-step growth discovery framework
Bill Gallagher
December 30, 2016
Niche selection
9
Branding
9
Business models
7
- Your competitive advantage already exists inside your business — find it.
- Define your core customer in 15 words or fewer, not demographics.
- Owning one thing beats standing for many — BMW proves it.