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Lenny's Newsletter, Growth, Business Models & Monetization

Lenny Rachitsky · lennysnewsletter.com Freemium Intermediate

Lenny's Newsletter is the most trusted operator-written resource on product, growth, and monetization, drawing on data from hundreds of companies. It's specific and tactical where most business-model writing is generic.

  • Match your monetization model to how customers already buy in your category
  • Freemium is a growth engine only if free users convert at a meaningful rate
  • B2B vs B2C is a fundamental fork that changes sales, pricing, and funding needs
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

It answers 6 questions

  1. What business model should I choose for my startup?
  2. What's the difference between SaaS, marketplace, and transactional business models?
  3. How do I make money from a free product or freemium model?
  4. How does a marketplace actually make money and solve the chicken-and-egg problem?
  5. Should I sell to businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)?
  6. How does Zerodha make money without charging brokerage on delivery trades?

Read with it

  1. YC's Startup Library is the canonical, no-fluff reference on how startups actually make money, curated from partners who've... ycombinator.com Article · browsable library Business Models & Metrics, Y Combinator Startup Library Y Combinator
  2. The origin text for the modern MVP and validated-learning vocabulary every founder now uses. Read it for the mental model that... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries
  3. A16z is the definitive source on marketplace and network-effect business models, having funded and studied more of them than... a16z.com Article · long-form article All About Network Effects & Marketplaces Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
  4. Patrick Campbell built ProfitWell on pricing data from thousands of companies, and this is the single best free deep-dive on... lennysnewsletter.com Article · long-form guide Pricing Your SaaS Product Patrick Campbell (ProfitWell), via Lenny's Newsletter
  5. A primary-source, founder-written account of how India's largest and most profitable brokerage actually makes money and thinks... zerodha.com Article · blog post Z-Connect: Business Updates & Why We Do What We Do Nithin Kamath
  6. A focused a16z piece on the single ratio that most captures a business's efficiency and drives its valuation. Great for... a16z.com Article · article Why Do Investors Care So Much About LTV:CAC? Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
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