The problem
Everyone wants recurring revenue. Everyone wants a platform, a marketplace, a subscription. Almost nobody runs the numbers to see whether their business actually survives the model they’re chasing.
A business model isn’t a label you pick because it’s fashionable — it’s a machine with its own economics. Freemium bleeds you dry until you know when free pays. A marketplace is worthless until it solves who shows up first. Cut out the middleman and the maths is often worse, not better.
Copy the shape of a model you admire and you inherit its costs without its conditions. The businesses that win chose the model their own economics could actually carry.
What this book gives you
How to Master Business Models lays out the 26 ways a business makes money — subscription, freemium, marketplace, platform, razor-and-blade, direct-to-consumer and more — each a full chapter with a model you run on your own numbers, and the Business Model Canvas to tie it together.
- Subscription
- Freemium
- Marketplace
- Platform
- Razor-and-Blade
- Direct-to-Consumer
- Aggregator
- The Business Model Canvas
… 26 in all, with the Canvas to put the whole business on one page.
See it move
Take freemium. Set conversion at 2%, your free-tier serving cost per user and your paid price, and the model shows whether the 98% who never pay are an acquisition engine or a slow bleed. Drop conversion to 1% and watch a “growing” business turn cash-negative. Change the blue cells; the verdict moves.
Buying more than one category? All 25 books and every one of the 467 models are £29.99 in the Business Framework Omnibus — less than the price of a third book. Prefer to try first? The free Framework Starter Pack gives you five complete chapters and their live Excel models.
26 frameworks. One category. The complete learning path. Every model in Business Models — explained, applied, and ready to use.
How to Master Business Models walks you through the complete arc: 26 models, in the order you'd actually learn them, each with a full practitioner chapter and a live Excel companion.
- 26 models across Business Models, the complete learning path
- Full practitioner chapters plus a live Excel companion for every model
- Written from 30+ years in investment banking, M&A and private equity
Business Models at a Glance
