Category
Business models
Plain-language breakdowns of the major business models (retail and physical products, service businesses and agencies, software and recurring revenue): what the margins really look like, what each model demands operationally, and how to choose and combine them.
14 articles
About the Business models thread
What actually distinguishes one business model from another, examined structurally rather than by label. Subscription, usage-based, one-time, productised service, marketplace: each imposes a different relationship between the work you do and the money that arrives, and that relationship is the model.
The pricing-structure pieces are the ones with the most immediate consequences. Usage-based versus seat-based is not a pricing tweak; it decides who your product is expensive for, what your customers optimise against, and how much your revenue moves when their business does. Choosing it late means rebuilding billing, contracts, and expectations at once.
The productisation material covers the most common transition small operations attempt: turning custom work into something with a fixed scope that a customer can simply buy.
What this topic covers
- Usage-based vs seat-based pricing, and what each optimises your customers toward
- SaaS metrics that interlock: MRR, churn, CAC, and LTV
- Productising a service: from custom hours to fixed-scope offers
- Retail and physical-product models, and where the margin actually goes
- Recurring revenue: what it requires before it is worth pursuing
Who it's for
Founders choosing or changing a model, service businesses considering productisation, and anyone trying to make sense of SaaS metrics.
14 articles in this thread, newest first. Every one is free to read with no signup.
14 articles in this thread
Business models · May 21, 2026
Marketplaces vs your own store: fees, traffic, and platform risk
The seller's channel fork in full: what marketplace fees actually buy, the true cost of "free" traffic, what an own-store really costs once acquisition is priced in, platform risk as a line item, and the both-and sequencing that lets each channel fund the other.
Novus Stream Solutions
Business models · May 14, 2026
From freelancer to agency: the leverage ladder and what breaks at each rung
The growth path from solo practice to agency: the subcontracting rung most freelancers should stop at longer, the employee math that surprises everyone, why the founder's job dissolves and re-forms at each level, and the honest criteria for climbing versus staying deliberately small.
Novus Stream Solutions
Business models · May 7, 2026
Recurring revenue for non-software businesses: retainers, memberships, and subscriptions that actually hold
Bringing subscription economics to services and physical products: why predictable revenue transforms planning and valuation, the three recurring structures and what each demands, the retention math that software learned the hard way, and the failure mode of recurring offers built on hope.
Novus Stream Solutions
Business models · Apr 23, 2026
Wholesale vs direct-to-consumer: margin, volume, and who owns the customer
The two roads for a physical product: what wholesale's fifty-percent haircut actually buys, what DTC's full margin actually costs, the customer-ownership question that outweighs both, and how small brands sequence the two channels instead of choosing forever.
Novus Stream Solutions
Business models · Apr 2, 2026
Taking a local service business online: the digital storefront for plumbers, cleaners, and everyone in between
The online playbook for trades and local services: claiming the map listing that does most of the work, the five-page website that converts, reviews as the real currency, online booking as a revenue lever, and the local content that beats agencies charging ten times more.
Novus Stream Solutions