Cash flow characteristics
Characteristics of cost structure
Characteristics of the market
Article Business Model Innovation
should be of interest: the article offers a primer on the subject and specifies (among others) the key elements of six well-known "takes" on business models.
Osma
This is impossible to answer, save at a simplistic level.
The model is simply how the business generates profit. It presents the configuration of internal resources. However the outcome (success) is entirely dependent on the dynamics of these resources. Moreover, both time and context will determine if any particular combination is successful.
This is Schumpeter's key point about innovation. It is also why Entrepreneurial Orientation has become such a popular concept, because it tries to present the qualities at a more general level.
Hence searching for the essential combination in a model for prediction is unlikely to be useful; save in a post-hoc analysis. It is much more useful to look at processes.
Alistair
Business model is a description of how business makes money. It’s a matter of how you deliver value to your customers at an appropriate cost.
I believe that the answer to your question is very wide, and we should try to answer the question of Joan Magretta in, Why Business Models Matter?
Hi Osma. It is almost a condition of entrepreneurship that the company is not perfecting a business model but developing one. The model should change as the founders engage with their market and become more experienced in the way the product serves the customer. If you are looking for a business modelling tool, then I would look first at Osterwalder and Pigneur's work on the Business Model Canvas. This is all about dynamism and is very helpful in the early stages when a company or project may change its aims, activities or resources on an almost daily basis.
I basically agree with the others. I believe a business model for entrepreneurship is an oxymoron. By its very nature, a creative new business is unique and cannot successfully be built around a preconceived model. The model will evolve around the creative project. Simply start with the requirement that you are building a company to make money that will look like no other.
