Thread by @dunkhippo33

Today's tweet thread is about business model angles that have worked well.

It's often hard to know what to try and how to start. What business model angles work?

1) Find a free product / service to offer and get paid by someone else.

E.g. a lot of big DTC health companies offer a free service or prescription that is paid for by insurance.

If it's a need-to-have product or service that's free, it's generally a no-brainer to sign up for.

2) Give or save someone money and take a % of it.

E.g @ArdiusTech helps you find free R&D tax credits. @ClaimcompassEU helps you find $$ that airlines owe you. Both find you free money and take a % of it.

3) Don't make ppl feel the cost.

Investment vehicles are a good example -- you send your money & fees / carry are taken from it without you knowing. Crowdfunding platforms & marketplaces do the same.

4) Don't make ppl feel the cost (part 2).

For this reason, subscription models have really taken off. If you had to decide every month whether to renew something, that friction of paying again and again would probably lead you to cancel.

5) Don't make ppl feel the cost (part 3).

Ppl disassociate "funny money" from fiat. At a poker table, ppl are more willing to bet if they're using chips than actual cash. It doesn't feel real.

I suspect that is what we are seeing with crypto & NFTs.

6) Timing is a real issue w/ many business models.

E.g. Like an email service provider. You only need 1 email service provider. So how do you get the right timing?

Figure out a different wedge product to get your foot in the door now - for the right timing on the upsell.

7) E.g. in the case of email marketing, maybe you sell a peripheral product (maybe to help ppl monitor their emails / analyze their lists / or whatever) and that allows you to have *constant communication* w/ your customers to upsell when they're ready.

8) Create special limited editions on variations of your product.

E.g @uglydrinks creates special limited edition flavors. I missed the strawberries & cream soda drop today. Sold out 🙁

Variation keeps your audience engaged & keeps FOMO high. You can command higher pricing too.

9) If you can't do any of the above, build an audience for a free educational product you can deliver and scale.

Very often this could be an online education event or piece of content that you gate with an email list.

This really works if you have something insightful to say.

10) (cont) A big reason why ppl buy from you is because they trust you and believe you have smart things to say about something.

Demonstrating that through content is the easiest way to show this. And you can stay top of mind for when ppl are ready.

11) (cont) But a big mistake that ppl make around content is they don't create content about things many ppl care a lot about.

What is a big hairy issue your customer wants to read about? Experiment and find that. And then double down on creating content about that all the time

12) Lastly, if you can have a strategy around at least one of these things above, then you can very often layer on a paid strategy (as opposed to organic) to make things go faster.

By paid, I mean ads / referral programs / mail / outbound sales / etc.

13) The flip side -- if you don't have something that will really *grab* a customer, then layering on paid will likely be quite difficult.