The Highlights: Name every business model
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Hey y’all! My name is Kelley Griggs, and I’m the founder and host of StartupNash (my company Britepeer’s premier community).
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Special note:
3686 was SO AMAZING. It was great to see fellow founders and funders out in the world. It was great to see you all IRL and catch up. Thanks for coming out to the StartupNash Happy Hour as well.
Member Updates
🚀 Document Doctors: Being a solopreneur can be a lonely and challenging landscape. One of the things that I am doing now is admitting to a weakness of being an introvert: getting out and meeting people. While this transition will take time, it is already showing progress. I have several prospects lined up several that can change the course of the business. If you don't take the first leap of faith forward, your business will take more time to get to the next step. Want to know more? Let's chat and join me on this quest!
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Brand/website feedback. This offer is from a branding/marketing expert in our group. If you are a founder and want to take advantage of her offer, please join StartupNash for more information.
News
Ncontracts, a leading provider of integrated compliance, risk, and vendor management solutions to the financial services industry, announced the acquisition of Venminder, a unified platform for managing third-party risk.
Oh you’re a founder? Name every business model
In a recent Slack conversation, several participants shared insights about their business models and strategies, emphasizing various approaches to building and sustaining revenue.
Consider a business model sprint. For product teams, consider the Business Model Canvas exercise (more on that below). For service businesses, a member suggested an exercise with Tara McMullin titled 7 Simple Business Model Templates.
If you’re bootstrapped, consider a product capable of generating self-sufficient income via Google Ads. A member explained their approach required minimal expenses since they handled everything independently.
Ask potential customers for feedback, whether running a startup, consultancy, or service-based business. A member shared that putting together a pitch deck led to business model improvements.
It’s ok to start with one thing and then pivot. One member shared that they started with subscription models, starting with monthly and annual plans, then shifted to seasonal packages. They discussed how tweaking pricing and duration, based on customer use cases, significantly improved engagement. They're now considering a pay-as-you-go model and exploring a free version of their app.
Additional Resources:
Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur: A great resource for developing and iterating on business models.
Lean Startup by Eric Ries: Provides insights on how to continuously improve products through customer feedback.
Google Ads Certification courses: Learn how to effectively implement ad support for generating income.
🛠 Tools:
Business Model Sprint (You can do this exercise on ChatGPT)
Use some prompt engineering with your favorite AI resource. Something like:
”Please help me complete a business model sprint. Your analysis should be detailed and insightful, focusing on the most compelling aspects of my business. Provide a clear and concise summary that highlights the key findings. Please make sure your response encourages creativity and originality in identifying and presenting the problems my product/tool/company solves. Articulate how the business model will work. Ask me follow up questions until you’re sure you understand what the business does, what problem it solves, the estimated size of market, competitors in the space both direct and indirect, the solution and the business model behind the solution.”
This exercise helps you cover the following:
Customer Discovery
Value Proposition
Revenue Streams
Cost Structure
GTM Channels
Customer Relationships
Prototyping & Testing
Ask AI to use the following tools in your sprint:
Business Model Canvas
Lean Canvas: (A variant of the Business Model Canvas specifically tailored to startups)
Design Thinking: A human-centered approach to problem-solving that involves rapid ideation, prototyping, and feedback.
SWOT Analysis: A method for evaluating your product's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Outcomes of a business model sprint:
Validated Business Model
Action Plan
Prototypes
At the end of the day, you can use these tools as a sounding board to help you make thoughtful considerations around revenue before you launch.
If you want to join these conversations or post a win, please join StartupNash.
Those are this week’s highlights. If you’d like to share ongoing updates with founders and funders on this email list, sign up to be a member of StartupNash. StartupNash uses Britepeer, a tool my team built, to connect members in our community by skill. We believe sharing knowledge through peer mentorship spreads wealth in our community. I hope you’ll consider joining us.