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.
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Business models · Jun 13, 2026
Usage-based vs seat-based pricing for software
A grounded comparison of the two dominant software pricing models: how seat-based and usage-based pricing each work, what each does for revenue predictability and value alignment, the very different ways they expand and churn inside a customer, why the "right" answer depends on how your product creates value, and why many mature products end up combining the two rather than choosing one.
Novus Stream Solutions (hub)
Business models · Jun 11, 2026
Retail vs service vs software: what the margins actually look like and why it changes everything
A side-by-side anatomy of the three major business models: where the money goes in each, why software's costs live above the gross-margin line while retail's live below it, how service businesses really scale, and how to read any business (including yours) through its margin structure.
Novus Stream Solutions
Business models · Jun 11, 2026
Understanding SaaS metrics: MRR, churn, CAC, LTV, and how they interlock
The recurring-revenue vocabulary explained for operators: what monthly recurring revenue actually counts, why churn compounds against you, how acquisition cost and lifetime value form the engine equation, and the small-numbers traps that make early metrics untrustworthy.
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