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Zara Altair creator of Zara Altair Writes. Author of multiple books on Amazon and professional Ghost Writer. Zara loves writing. Future authors appreciate her years of experience and collaborative spirit for ghostwritten books. Website owners and their website designers appreciate her knowledge and skill creating semantically optimized text. She accomplishes the dual purpose of writing to customers and increasing search engine attention. Zara lives among trees and wildlife in Oregon where she appreciates her rich surroundings. She has two grown children and loves to travel.     She will explain to us how the business of ghostwriting works!      

Amazon has a diversified business model. In 2018, online stores contributed to nearly 52% of Amazon revenues, followed by Physical Stores, Third-party Seller Services, AWS, Subscription Services, and Advertising revenues.

In collaboration with #SEOisAEO podcast, hosted by the great Jason Barnard. Gennaro Cuofano explores the key aspects of Facebook Business Model. Facebook makes money with an advertising business model. Almost all the revenue comes from targeted advertising. Indeed, Facebook revenue breakdown in 2018 was: Advertising (over 98% of revenues): it primarily consists of displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party Payments and other fees (less than 2% of total revenues):  it consists of the net fee received from developers using Payments infrastructure or revenue from the delivery of virtual reality platform devices and others But there are some others key aspects to take into account to understand Facebook Business Model! Read: How Mobile Advertising Is Driving Facebook Growth Key takeaways Mobile is driving Facebook growth, and now it represents 92% of its total advertising revenues In 2018 Facebook went all into advertising. Its business model isn’t becoming more diversified. Quite the opposite, advertising now represents 98.5% of its revenues Facebook user base (comprising Facebook and Messenger) stalled in the US and Canada Facebook user base kept growing a bit in Europe, and it kept increasing worldwide, thanks to substantial growth in Asia-Pacific (from 828 million users in 2017 to 947 million users in 2018) and in the rest of the world (from 692 million users in 2017, to 750 million users in 2018) Nonetheless, a stalled growth in the US & Canada Facebook ARPU grew substantially. Why did that happen? A first clear reason is that Facebook is monetizing via mobile, and it seems a growing number of marketers joined the platform (we can’t know the number from its financials) and those same marketers are spending more. At the same time, Facebook ads are “performing” better Instagram might be driving Facebook growth Facebook got 13% more expensive in 2018, yet not as much as it did back in 2017 when it was 29% more expensive A growing number of marketers are joining the platform and are spending more on ads Marketers might be spending more on ads also due to Facebook cutting off their organic reach. In short, advertising remains the most effective mean to reach an audience on Facebook Facebook profitability stands at 39.6% in 2018, which makes it (for now) a cash cow, even more than Google’s Alphabet (which profitability stand at 22.4% in 2018)

Ash Maurya is a practitioner and entrepreneur. Author of Running Lean, Scaling Lean and the Lean Canvas, built on top of the Business Model Canvas. Ash is also the founder of LEANSTACK. I took the chance to ask Ash a few questions. I tried to limit those as I had so many things I wanted to ask him. And Ash was kind enough to answer all of them! Key takeaways Entrepreneurs are risk-averse Entrepreneurship is about getting in love with the problem Avoid to fall in the innovator’s bias, or getting in love with the solution Demo-sell-build rather than build-demo-sell There is a key metric to assess the success of a business: Traction! Business models can be categorized according to the actors and interactions involved in three kinds: direct, multisided and marketplace Business models are always evolving Searching for the proper business model means making it profitable Look for the smallest market, that is big enough to make your business sustainable You need to be fast from idea to execution, as a few ideas will turn out to be successful

In this episode, I took the chance to ask, Felix Hofmann, CEO of the Business Model Innovation Lab, a spin-off from the University of St. Gallen, a few questions about business model innovation and more! To give a bit of context the Business Model Innovation Lab is a spin-off from the University of St. Gallen, from which research, the book “Business Model Navigator,” came up. The Business Model Navigator is one of my favorite books when it comes to understanding business model innovation. Key takeaways from the interview Business model innovation implies a lot of testing and iterations Beware of falling in love with vanity metrics A business model comprises a revenue model, but they are not the same thing A revenue model is part of the “why” dimension of a business model The blueprint of a business model is called a pattern. This needs to be repeatable Often a successful business model implies mixing up several business model patterns Before a business model might become viable it might take up years of experimentation and testing A business model scalability implies two dimensions: internal and external The business models of the future are becoming more about creating ecosystems Thus, circular business models might become dominant in the future Questions: What brought you to study and research business model innovation? Did you find the freemium model to be an effective model in your first start-up? Do you think can we call a business model viable when we’re missing the profit formula? What is for you a good definition of business model? What’s the difference between a business model pattern and the business model? Is business model innovation about mixing up those patterns and blueprints? How does business model scalability work? Are there business models that you see will be dominating in the future? Are there any interesting business model patterns that you notice so far in the blockchain world? Is there any person, academics, that you suggest following from the business modeling side? Is there a companion book that you suggest reading together of course with the “Business Model Navigator?” Key takeaways from the interview Suggested readings from the interview A glance at the business model patterns from the Business Model Navigator

Alberto Savoia is the former Innovation Agitator and Engineering Director at Google, and Innovation Lecturer at Stanford. Founder of Pretotype Labs. He is also the author of a book that I loved, which is “The Right It: why so many fail and how to make sure yours succeed.” I took the chance to ask Alberto a few questions, and he was very kind to answer them all! Contents: How did you get passionate about understanding why startups fail? What is your background? What is pretotyping, and how did you find out about it? How different is pretotyping from prototyping? What’s the IBM Text-To-Speech and why it mattered so much to your idea of pretotyping? How did you manage to help people embrace projects which were highly risky? Why then it matters to get out from Thoughtland and why you need to collect your own data? What companion business books (to The Right It) do you suggest? Is there any business person nor entrepreneur you suggest following? What are you working next?

Dr. Adam J. Bock is an academic entrepreneur, financier, tech-venturing expert, and co-author of a must-read book which is called The Business Model Book. The Business Model Book is an incredible resource which cut through the noise of understanding how to use business models and business model analysis to start your next venture. With Adam, we went in-depth into the business models world. How did you get into the study of business models? What business models are not? Were business models born with the Internet? (A brief history of business models) What are some other common myths that surround business models? Is business models analysis a primary tool for business experimentation? What’s a definition or effective definition of business models? The academic definition The entrepreneurial definition What are some of the business models tools available, and how to use them? The lean canvas as an early stage business model tool RTVN framework for a very early stage venture What are the SHaRP resources and why they matter? What’s the customer journey map and why it matters? What’s a business model narrative, and why it is essential? What are some of the key obstacles to designing a great business model? Suggested reading

Today we have here, Allen Gannett. He’s the Chief Strategy Officer of Skyword, founder of TrackMaven, which is a big data analytics company; and he’s also the author of “The Creative Curve“. A book that I loved and I suggest everyone reading it. And today we’re actually going to explore with Allen, the insights about creativity, how it works. And also the misconceptions we all have about how creativity works. So thank you for being with us today Allen. For the full transcript go to: fourweekmba.com/creative-curve-allen-gannet/

David L. Rogers, is an author, speaker, and consultant. He is the Faculty Director of the Digital Business Strategy and Leadership at Columbia Business School. And he is also the author of a fantastic book which is The Digital Transformation Playbook. This is a must-read because it helps you to understand how the business world has changed. I asked David a few key questions to understand what digital transformation is really about! How did you get into digital transformation? What are the myths surrounding digital transformation? How can we define digital transformation? What is it really about? How do you think the business strategy world has changed? What are the five domains of business strategy in the digital era? Customers Competition Data Innovation Value How have customers changed in the digital era? What are the customers’ core behaviors in the digital era? Access Engage Customize Connect Collaborate What is the business model most suited for this digital era? What are the fundamental principles for a successful digital strategy? Key takeaways Conclusion

Ash Maurya is a practitioner and entrepreneur. Author of Running Lean, Scaling Lean and the Lean Canvas, built on top of the Business Model Canvas. Ash is also the founder of LEANSTACK. In this session, we focused on continuous innovation and scaling lean. Contents How did we go from lean manufacturing to continuous innovation? What’s the key difference between an entrepreneur and a scientist? What are the key ingredients for an effective entrepreneurial experiment? Why monetization is a building block you want to test early on? What can we learn from the early Facebook on monetization and execution? How did Tesla instead execute a staged rollout? How do you go from problem/solution fit to scale? When is the right time, if there’s any, to take venture capital money? When does it make sense to bootstrap? How do you build the optimal business model? How is traction different from revenue and why is it a key metric? What is throughput accounting, and how it works? How does the 10x growth model work? Why do we need to remove failure from our vocabulary? Key takeaways

Barry O’Reilly, is a business advisor, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and is the author who has pioneered the intersection of business model innovation, product development, organizational design, and culture transformation. Barry is the founder of ExecCamp, the entrepreneurial experience for executives, and management consultancy Antennae. He wrote  an amazing book, “Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results” and he is also the author of “Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale.” We’re diving deep into “unlearning” and how it can help organizations thrive in this era. Contents How did you get into the study, research and practice of unlearning? A change in mindset What’s the learning organization and what’s unlearning instead? Recognizing what’s not working Learn fast and rapidly innovate Is disruption organizational or it happens at an individual level? How does the Cycle of Unlearning work? Not a one-and-done cycle What are the key characteristics of unlearning? Curiosity Ownership Commitment Recap of the key characteristics to master unlearning What’s status quo leadership and why it might be damgerous? Avoid to just copy and paste frameworks Define the outcomes Build a system to continuous innovation through unlearning How to use the Three Cultures Model to build a successful company? What are unlearning prompts? And why they matter? How do you know you need to unlearn? Is there a number one reason people don’t unlearn? Build a growth mindset Fixed vs. growth mindset Switch the focus from the person to the process Recap about growth vs. fixed mindset What suggestions do you have for executives to bring this process in their organizations? Key takeaways

For this interview, Greg Satell, international keynote speaker, advisor, and the author of a book, which I loved, a best selling book, called “Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age,” has answered a few key questions about innovation strategy and business model innovation. Let’s dive into them! Contents How did you fall in love with the quest for understanding innovation? Is innovation about making quick decisions? What are some of the myths surrounding innovation? How does the Innovation Matrix work? How important is sustaining innovation? In which scenario, the lean startup helps to find the right path toward business innovation? What instead is a classic example of breakthrough innovation? Are tools like Porter’s Five Forces and SWOT Analyses still useful in today’s business landscape? How has the business world changed? Is the business model canvas a useful tool for that? How do we understand ecosystems? How important is to build ecosystems for scaling up a business? Key takeaways

For this interview, I have with me Thales Teixeira, professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain,” which is an incredible book and an incredible reading, especially if you’re trying to understand how today’s business world works. I asked Thales a few critical questions to understand the business landscape and each of them uncovers insights that will make you a better business person! Contents What brought you to study business model disruption and business innovation? What’s for you that the most effective definition of a business model? What is the customer value chain and how does that work? What is decoupling and why is it so important? How did Birchbox break the customer value chain? Is disruption about business model innovation? Didn’t Uber start as a tech company? What are the three phases of digital business disruption? Unbundling in a nutshell Disintermediation in a nutshell Summarizing the three waves of unbundling, disintermediation and decoupling How do we know what the consumer is looking for? And how to use decoupling in our favor? The three customers’ currencies How important is branding in consumers’ choices? In this context, are traditional business tools, like Porter’s Five Forces, still useful? How should I start a disruptive company today? Is specialization the key to decoupling? What’s next? Is decoupling the main disruptive force in the coming decade? Key takeaways

Walker Deibel, is an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He also the author of a book that is critical to master a framework to become an acquisition entrepreneur: Buy Then Build. With Walker, we covered the key steps to get into the mindset and process of acquiring businesses, to then scale them up further. Contents How did you get started as an acquisition entrepreneur? Inside acquisition entrepreneurship How did the name “acquisition entrepreneur” came up? What are the critical elements for a good acquisition strategy? Lack of urgency Accusatory mindset Create a sense of urgency Pitch the seller What mistakes should you avoid when acquiring a business? Go after a great opportunity A growth mindset is critical Why is not a good idea to start looking for businesses to buy online? What do you suggest to people that are getting started in acquiring other businesses? Understand your strengths but also your weaknesses Visualize the outcome and take action Find your sweet spot Is there an example of the perfect acquisition you’ve made? When does it make sense actually to use leverage to acquire a company?

Nick Johnson is the Principal at Applico; he is also the co-author of the best selling book “Modern Monopolies,” which is incredible reading to understand the business model that is dominating today’s business world. With Nick, we explored the dynamics of platform business models. Contents How did you get to study business modeling and the platform business models? How has the business world changed since platform business models dominate? What is a diseconomy of scale? How have economies of scale changed in a world dominated by platform business models? What’s the definition of a platform business model? What is the core transaction? Why is the core transaction so crucial for a platform business model? How are platform business models primarily categorized? Are traditional business strategy tools like Porter’s five forces still useful? How do you build network effects? Uber network effects case study How do you know when you reached the critical mass to scale? Do platform business models create more prominent and larger markets? What’s the critical difference between a modern monopoly to an old monopoly? Is scale an essential element for any platform business model? What suggestion do you have for anyone starting a platform business model from scratch? Key takeaways

For more you can access the free guide at FourWeekMBA.com What is a business model? A business model is also about how you make money but how you make money isn’t your business model It’s all about business model design What are the primary components of a business model? How many types of business models exist?

The bullseye framework is a simple method that enables you to prioritize over the marketing channels that will make your company gain traction. The premise is that when you grow a company from scratch, in most cases, you don’t have a massive marketing budget. This requires a scientific method for marketing experimentation to prioritize on those channels that have the highest potential. Often, this marketing prioritization process will bring you to experiment with new marketing channels which might still be underutilized by your competitors, and for such reason also the ones with the highest potential. The bullseye framework was manufactured by Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares, in their book, Traction. Let me give you a bit of background about the story of one of the authors, Gabriel Weinberg, and how they came up with this framework. You find the full free guide here: fourweekmba.com/bullseye-framework/

For more you can access the free guide at FourWeekMBA.com What is a business model? A business model is also about how you make money but how you make money isn’t your business model It’s all about business model design What are the primary components of a business model? How many types of business models exist?

We’ll see a few one-page tools to give entrepreneurs clarity of mind on their overall business to take actions to build a sustainable venture that unlocks value for many players in the long-term. To go more in-depth into the topic, check out: Business model canvas Lean startup canvas Value proposition canvas Blitzscaling business model innovation canvas The business model navigator methodology Other resources for your business: What Is a Business Model? 30 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know What Is a Business Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas Explained Blitzscaling Business Model Innovation Canvas In A Nutshell What Is a Value Proposition? Value Proposition Canvas Explained What Is a Lean Startup Canvas? Lean Startup Canvas Explained How to Write a One-Page Business Plan How to Build a Great Business Plan According to Peter Thiel What Is The Most Profitable Business Model? The Era Of Paywalls: How To Build A Subscription Business For Your Media Outlet How To Create A Business Model What Is Business Model Innovation And Why It Matters What Is Blitzscaling And Why It Matters

Other resources for your business: What Is a Business Model? 30 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know What Is a Business Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas Explained Blitzscaling Business Model Innovation Canvas In A Nutshell What Is a Value Proposition? Value Proposition Canvas Explained What Is a Lean Startup Canvas? Lean Startup Canvas Explained How to Write a One-Page Business Plan How to Build a Great Business Plan According to Peter Thiel What Is The Most Profitable Business Model? The Era Of Paywalls: How To Build A Subscription Business For Your Media Outlet How To Create A Business Model What Is Business Model Innovation And Why It Matters What Is Blitzscaling And Why It Matters