Product > Strategy > Business Model
One of the mistakes I see entrepreneurs make is they move to business model before locking down strategy. The way I like to think about this is get the product right first, then lock down the strategy of the business, then figure out the business model.
Context & Ripple Effects
The advice extends an existing startup sequence in the corpus: understanding the new product and startup and investing before product-market fit come before heavier scaling decisions. It also follows the argument that users should precede brands, captured in users-first thinking.
By putting business-model design after product and strategy, the piece treats monetization as an outcome of a validated offering and deliberate market position, rather than the opening design constraint.
First-order effects
- Entrepreneurs are urged to defer business-model optimization until they have established a product and a strategy, changing the order in which they allocate early attention.
- Investors evaluating young companies gain a clearer distinction between an unresolved product or strategic question and a business-model question.
Second-order effects
- Teams that adopt the sequence are less likely to let an early revenue mechanism dictate product choices before the product's user value is established.
- Business-model discussions shift toward revenue and cost trade-offs after strategic choices are defined, consistent with the corpus's profits-equal-revenues-minus-costs framing.
Third-order effects
- If the sequencing becomes common practice, startup formation will increasingly separate product validation, strategic positioning, and monetization into distinct decision stages rather than treating them as one plan.
The trend: Startup advice is increasingly framing product, strategy, and business model as separate layers that should be resolved in sequence.