Deconstructing & Mapping B2B SaaS Business Models

Freemium vs. Free Trial vs. Enterprise: how they monetize, acquire customers & activate/engage users. (#52)

When Alistair and I published Lean Analytics, we introduced the idea of mapping your business (as a systems diagram) in order to understand where to focus and what to track. We put together six business models, one of which was B2B SaaS. Here’s a copy of what we published:

This represents a high-level visualization of a B2B Freemium/Trial SaaS business. But there are a bunch of B2B SaaS business models. In fact, “B2B SaaS” means very little. If someone tells you, “My startup is a B2B SaaS,” what does that mean? Are they selling enterprise software top-down, or are they providing free software to small businesses hoping to upsell something? Are they focused on a vertical or going horizontal? Freemium? Free trial? Usage-based? Seat-based?

The above diagram can help you understand your business at a high-level. I encourage every founder (and startup team) to go through this exercise because it reveals important things:

1. Clarity on where to focus: What part of the diagram do you really care …