FourWeekMBA - The Leading Source Of Insights On Digital Entrepreneurship And Business Model Strategy

What Is Business Model Innovation And Why It Matters

Business model innovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies. By crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers. The importance of business model innovation In … Continue reading What Is Business Model Innovation And Why It Matters

What Is a Business Model? 30 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know

A business model is a framework for finding a systematic way to unlock long-term value for an organization while delivering value to customers and capturing value through monetization strategies. A business model is a holistic framework to understand, design, and test your business assumptions in the marketplace. What is a business model and why is … Continue reading What Is a Business Model? 30 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know

The Importance Of Brand Building And How To Create A Brand Identity

Brand building is the set of activities that help companies to build an identity that can be recognized by its audience. Thus, it works as a mechanism of identification through core values that signal trust and that help build long-term relationships between the brand and its key stakeholders. The modern father of brand building in … Continue reading The Importance Of Brand Building And How To Create A Brand Identity

Value Proposition Canvas And Design In A Nutshell

A value proposition is about how you create value for customers. While many entrepreneurial theories draw from customers’ problems and pain points, value can also be created via demand generation, which is about enabling people to identify with your brand, thus generating demand for your products and services. Breaking Down Value Proposition In Business A … Continue reading Value Proposition Canvas And Design In A Nutshell

How Does Netflix Make Money? Netflix Business Model In A Nutshell

Netflix is a subscription-based business model making money with three simple plans: basic, standard, and premium, giving access to stream series, movies, and shows. The company is profitable, yet it runs on negative cash flows due to upfront cash paid for content licensing and original content production. A glance at the Netflix business model Netflix … Continue reading How Does Netflix Make Money? Netflix Business Model In A Nutshell

What Is Product-Market Fit? Product-Market Fit In A Nutshell

Marc Andreessen defined Product/market fit as “being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” According to Andreessen, that is a moment when a product or service has its place in the market, thus enabling traction for the company offering that product or service. Origin of the term “Product-Market Fit” In … Continue reading What Is Product-Market Fit? Product-Market Fit In A Nutshell

How Does Facebook Make Money? Facebook Business Model In A Nutshell

Facebook is an attention-based business model. As such, its algorithms condense the attention of over 2.4 billion users as of June 2019. Facebook advertising revenues accounted for $31.9 billion or 98.66% of its total revenues. Facebook Inc. has a product portfolio made of Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Snapshot of Facebook key stats and facts … Continue reading How Does Facebook Make Money? Facebook Business Model In A Nutshell

What Is a Business Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas In A Nutshell

The business model canvas is a framework proposed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur in Busines Model Generation enabling the design of business models through nine building blocks comprising: key partners, key activities, value propositions, customer relationships, customer segments, critical resources, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams. A quick intro to business models A business model is … Continue reading What Is a Business Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas In A Nutshell

Resurrecting Marketing Strategy In A World Driven By Metrics

A marketing strategy is the “what” and “how” to build a sustainable value chain framed for a target customer. A powerful marketing strategy needs to be able to manufacture desire, amplify the underlying value proposition, and build a brand that feels unique in the mind of its customers. How has marketing changed in the digital … Continue reading Resurrecting Marketing Strategy In A World Driven By Metrics

Distribution Channels: Types, Functions, And Examples

A distribution channel is the set of steps it takes for a product to get in the hands of the key customer or consumer. Distribution channels can be direct or indirect. Distribution can also be physical or digital, depending on the kind of business and industry. Why a distribution channel strategy matters Often companies undervalue … Continue reading Distribution Channels: Types, Functions, And Examples

What Is Market Segmentation And Why It Matters

Market segmentation is the process of dividing the market into sub-groups. Market segmentation can be based on characteristics such as age, behaviors, income levels, and more. This process helps to understand what your key customers want, where they are, and how to talk to them effectively. Quick summary of this guide This is a guide … Continue reading What Is Market Segmentation And Why It Matters

How Amazon Makes Money: Amazon Business Model in a Nutshell

Amazon has a diversified business model. In 2018 Amazon posted over $232 billion in revenues and over $10 billion in net profits. Online stores contributed to nearly 52% of Amazon revenues, followed by Physical Stores, Third-party Seller Services, Amazon AWS, Subscription Services, and Advertising revenues. A quick summary of the Amazon business model Started in 1994 as … Continue reading How Amazon Makes Money: Amazon Business Model in a Nutshell

How To Start A Business: From Idea Validation To Traction

I’ve devoted years of my life, putting together all the materials and resources that have helped me along the way of becoming a digital entrepreneur and head of business development for a tech startup. I thought it just made sense to document those things along the way so that I could form a more in-depth … Continue reading How To Start A Business: From Idea Validation To Traction

The Amazon Leadership Principles Crafted By Jeff Bezos

Amazon fundamental principles that drove and drive the company are: Customer Obsession Ownership Invent and Simplify Are Right, A Lot Learn and Be Curious Hire and Develop the Best Insist on the Highest Standards Think Big Bias for Action Frugality Earn Trust Dive Deep Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit Deliver Results Before diving into them, … Continue reading The Amazon Leadership Principles Crafted By Jeff Bezos

Dissecting Digital Platform Businesses With Sangeet Paul Choudary

Sangeet Paul Choudary is the best selling co-author of Platform Revolution and author of Platform Scale. Sangeet is also the young global leader at the World Economic Forum and founder at Platform Mission Labs and keynote speaker. What actually drove you to this research into the platform business models? Sangeet Paul Choudary: I got into … Continue reading Dissecting Digital Platform Businesses With Sangeet Paul Choudary

The Complete Guide To Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a process of rapid experimentation, coupled with the understanding of the whole funnel, where marketing, product, data analysis, and engineering work together to achieve rapid growth. The growth hacking process goes through four key stages of analyzing, ideating, prioritizing and testing. It is critical to integrate growth hacking within your business model … Continue reading The Complete Guide To Growth Hacking

Blue Ocean Strategy: Value Innovation To Create An Uncontested Market

A blue ocean is a strategy where the boundaries of existing markets are redefined, and new uncontested markets are created. At its core, there is value innovation, for which uncontested markets are created, where competition is made irrelevant. And the cost-value trade-off is broken. Thus, companies following a blue ocean strategy offer much more value … Continue reading Blue Ocean Strategy: Value Innovation To Create An Uncontested Market

Microniche: The New Standard In The Era Of Dominating Digital Tech Giants

A microniche is a subset of potential customers within a niche. Identifying a microniche nowadays has become critical to kick off the strategy of an online business. In this article, we’ll see how to do that. Follow along! Niche marketing isn’t enough anymore There used to be a time when starting a business in a … Continue reading Microniche: The New Standard In The Era Of Dominating Digital Tech Giants

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big With Bo Burlingham [Interview]

In today’s session, I had the pleasure to have Bo Burlingham, contributing writer at Forbes, co-founder of the Small Giants Community, former editor-at-large for Inc. Magazine and author of several books among which I really loved and enjoyed Small Giants, which is going to be the topic of this conversation. What drove you to the … Continue reading Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big With Bo Burlingham [Interview]

A Simple Growth Strategy Framework To Get Your Business Out From The Death Zone

You had a brilliant idea, which inspired you to take action. Quit your 9-to-5 job, and start your own company. After a bunch of pitches, you also managed to get some venture capital funding. However, after growing your company to pass the seven-figure mark, you find yourself close to the death zone. That is a … Continue reading A Simple Growth Strategy Framework To Get Your Business Out From The Death Zone

Idea Generation: How To Enhance Your Creativity Flow For Business Growth

Ever since the Lean Startup became a reality, people like Eric Ries have widely built upon the belief that ideas are overrated. According to this belief, in the entrepreneurial world, success is not about having ideas. That is instead about being able to have a framework that makes you understand what ideas make the most … Continue reading Idea Generation: How To Enhance Your Creativity Flow For Business Growth

What Is Bootstrapping? Why A Bootstrapping Business Is The Way To Go

A bootstrapper isnʼt a particular demographic or even a certain financial situation. Instead, itʼs a state of mind. That is how Seth Godin described bootstrapping in his “The Bootstrapper Bible.” As firms which are venture capital backed get so much media attention, it’s easy to miss the other 99% of businesses out there which made … Continue reading What Is Bootstrapping? Why A Bootstrapping Business Is The Way To Go

What Is Niche Marketing And Why You Need A Niche Marketing Strategy

Niche marketing is a strategy which premise is to target a subset of a market which can be of various sizes. Where a marketing strategy focused on the whole potential market used to be effective when mass advertising was possible. A niche marketing strategy can help position your brand more efficiently, nowadays. Niche marketing also … Continue reading What Is Niche Marketing And Why You Need A Niche Marketing Strategy

Continuous Innovation And Lean Startup With Ash Maurya

Ash Maurya is a practitioner and entrepreneur. Author of Running Lean, Scaling Lean and the Lean Canvas, built on top of the Business Model Canvas. Ash is also the founder of LEANSTACK. In this session, we focused on continuous innovation and scaling lean. How did we go from lean manufacturing to continuous innovation? Ash Maurya: If we go back to, let’s … Continue reading Continuous Innovation And Lean Startup With Ash Maurya

How To Build A Digital Marketing Strategy For Long-Term Success

Let me tell you a few fundamental principles to build a digital distribution for your digital business, which I’ve learned at a costly price over the years, after many trials and errors (you don’t have to). There are seven via negativa (not to do!) principles I’ve learned: Don’t build a business based on product features. Don’t wait … Continue reading How To Build A Digital Marketing Strategy For Long-Term Success

A Guide To Disruptive Business Models With Thales Teixeira [Lecture]

For this interview, I have with me Thales Teixeira, professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain,” (you can download a free chapter of the book here) which is an incredible book and an incredible reading, especially if you’re trying to understand how today’s business world works. I asked Thales … Continue reading A Guide To Disruptive Business Models With Thales Teixeira [Lecture]

How Does Slack Make Money? Slack Business Model In A Nutshell

Slack follows a freemium model, where a free version is offered, and users can convert in paying customers if they want more usage or advanced functionalities. Slack combines the free model with a direct sales force to acquire enterprise customers with yearly recurring revenue of over 100K. Those customers were 575 in 2019, and they … Continue reading How Does Slack Make Money? Slack Business Model In A Nutshell

Lessons On Running Lean With Ash Maurya [Lecture]

Ash Maurya is a practitioner and entrepreneur. Author of Running Lean, Scaling Lean and the Lean Canvas, built on top of the Business Model Canvas. Ash is also the founder of LEANSTACK. I took the chance to ask Ash a few questions. I tried to limit those as I had so many things I wanted … Continue reading Lessons On Running Lean With Ash Maurya [Lecture]

How Does Pinterest Work And Make Money? Pinterest Business Model In A Nutshell

Pinterest makes money by selling advertising for marketers and companies that can gain visibility for their brands and more sales for their shops. In 2018, Pinterest made over $755 million in advertising revenue, and it had 250 million monthly active users. The foundation of any business model needs to be built on top of a … Continue reading How Does Pinterest Work And Make Money? Pinterest Business Model In A Nutshell

Amazon Flywheel: Amazon Virtuous Cycle In A Nutshell

The Amazon Flywheel or Amazon Virtuous Cycle is a strategy that leverages on customer experience to drive traffic to the platform and third-party sellers. That improves the selections of goods, and Amazon further improves its cost structure so it can decrease prices which spins the flywheel. This process is well known within Amazon and as … Continue reading Amazon Flywheel: Amazon Virtuous Cycle In A Nutshell

What Is A Technology Adoption Curve? The Five Stages Of A Technology Adoption Life Cycle

In his book, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, Geoffrey A. Moore highlights a model that tries to dissect and represent the stages of adoption of high-tech products. More precisely this model goes through five stages. Each of those stages (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggard) has a … Continue reading What Is A Technology Adoption Curve? The Five Stages Of A Technology Adoption Life Cycle

Business Strategy: Definition, Examples, And Case Studies

This guide follows a logical structure. I start by analyzing the business model of a company, I then apply a business model essence to it, and we then look at either why a company adopted a certain business strategy and what’s next. What is a business strategy? At this stage, it is important to clarify … Continue reading Business Strategy: Definition, Examples, And Case Studies

Digital Business Models Map: The Most Popular Digital Business Model Types

A digital business model might be defined as a model that leverages on digital technology to improve several aspects of an organization. From how customers interact, to how the value proposition is derived, or how monetization happens. We all like to think of digital business models as innovative in their own sake. However, in many … Continue reading Digital Business Models Map: The Most Popular Digital Business Model Types

What Is Brand Value And Brand Equity And Why They Matter?

The brand equity is the premium that a customer is willing to pay for a product that has all the objective characteristics of existing alternatives, thus, making it different in terms of perception. The premium on seemingly equal products and quality is attributable to its brand equity. Beyond the balance sheet and into the consumer’s mind … Continue reading What Is Brand Value And Brand Equity And Why They Matter?

AI Economy: How Do You Make Money With Machine Learning?

The AI Ecosystem has generated a multi-billion dollar industry, and it all starts from data. Going upward in the value chain there are the Chips (GPUs) that allow the physical storing of Big Data (a dominant player is NVIDIA). That Big Data will need to be stored on platforms and infrastructures that SMEs can’t afford. … Continue reading AI Economy: How Do You Make Money With Machine Learning?

How Does Google Make Money? It’s Not Just Advertising!

Google primarily makes money via its advertising network that in 2017 generated 86% of its revenues. Then, the other side of the business – almost 13% of its revenues in 2017 – comprised money from the Apps, in-app purchases, and digital content in the Google Play store, Google Cloud offering and Hardware products. The remaining part … Continue reading How Does Google Make Money? It’s Not Just Advertising!

Blitzscaling Business Model Innovation Canvas In A Nutshell

There isn’t a single way to define a business model, and any tool that helps identify it from a different perspective – I argue – is useful for an entrepreneur building a different kind of business. In this article, I’ll focus on the Blitzscaling business model canvas. This is a model based on the concept … Continue reading Blitzscaling Business Model Innovation Canvas In A Nutshell

The Five Key Factors That Lead To Successful Tech Startups

According to Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, the five key factors influencing startups’ success are the idea, team, business model, funding, and timing. Among them, timing is extremely important but can’t be controlled. That is why startups often need enough funds to keep going until the business becomes viable. What does it take to build … Continue reading The Five Key Factors That Lead To Successful Tech Startups

The Complete Guide To Content Marketing

5 Strategies to Monetize Your Blog Without Spending a Dollar on Ads!

A 33 Years Old Jeff Bezos Explains How He Started Amazon

In an interview dated June 1997, a 33 years old Jeff Bezos expresses how it all started: Three years ago I was in New York City working for a quantitative hedge fund when it came across the startling statistic the web usage was growing at 2,300 percent a year so I decided I would try … Continue reading A 33 Years Old Jeff Bezos Explains How He Started Amazon