I conducted this workshop about the importance of identifying the right revenue model when starting a company for the business students and members of the Sales Club at the Harvard Business School.

1. Monetizing Your Business:
Why Businesses Need To Focus On Sales Growth

2. Monetizing Your
Business:
Why Businesses Need To Focus On
Sales Growth
By: Steven Tulman
For: Harvard Business School
Email: steven.tulman@gmail.com
Twitter: @StevenTulman
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/stevetulman

3. Why Do So Many Startups Fail?
CB Insights analyzed 101 failed companies and the top reasons they failed.
Here’s a recent article I published on LinkedIn addressing the top 3 reasons.

4. 5 Core Needs of a Business
① The idea
② Product/market fit
③ People who can execute
④ Funds to make it happen
⑤ Revenue to keep it growing

5. Why is Making Money Really
Important?
 Keeps your business alive
 Makes is easier to get investments at higher valuations
 Enables you to grow your business and do more
 Helps you to qualify for business loans
 Builds confidence amongst employees and stakeholders

6. A Few Success Stories
- IPO’d in May 2012
- Pre-IPO revenue
$3.7B in revenue and
$1B in profits
- IPO’d in November 2013
- Pre-IPO revenue over
$500M
- Bought by Facebook in
February 2014 for $19B
- $20M in revenue in
2013

7. A Few Not So Successful
Companies
- Founded in 1999
- Millions of users
- Failed to monetize
- Several law suits
- Ceased operation in
- Founded in 2011 2001
- Graduated YC
- Raised $1M @ $7M Val
- Couldn’t monetize
- Ran out of money
- Shutdown 2013
- Founded in 2008
- $7.3M in Funding
- Over 5M registered users
- Sold US ads to
international users
- Failed to monetize
- Went under June 2014

8. Monetization Do’s and Don’ts
 You DON’T need to monetize right away
 You DO need to have a clear sales strategy
 You DO need to project when revenue will come in
 You DO need to project how much will be generated
 You DO need to monetize eventually!

9. Some Popular Options
 Affiliate Revenue Model
 Ad Revenue Model
 Recurring Revenue Model
 Transactional Revenue Model
 Project Revenue Model
 Services Revenue Model

10. Developing Your Sales Strategy
 Build it yourself or hire help
 Hire the right people for the current stage of your business
 Hire the right people for your product and market
 Hire the right people for your chosen revenue model

11. Core Components of a Sales
Strategy
① Understand your audience (Become an industry expert)
② Determine your sales acquisition and prospecting approach
③ Develop your sales process (Your step-by-step process)
④ Create a detailed customer onboarding plan
⑤ Develop a customer management process
⑥ Determine KPI’s and Monitor Them Regularly
⑦ Analyze, Revise, and Repeat

12. What You Need From Your Sales
Team
① Your sales team should know your customers
② Your sales team should be empowered and held accountable
③ Your salespeople are your brand ambassadors
④ Your sales team must grow your revenue

13. What Does it All Mean?
 Sales are important – User acquisition model is weak on its own.
 Freemium, Premium… it’s all about the Benjamins!
i. Determine your revenue model
ii. Develop your sales & marketing strategy
iii. Hire the right people to execute
iv. Analyze, revise, repeat
 Collect data, but understand why, who will use it, how they’ll use it, and
why they’ll pay for it.
 Investors, shareholders, employees – everyone cares about revenue
 It REALLY IS all about the Benjamins!

14. By Steven Tulman
Email: steven.tulman@gmail.com
Twitter: @StevenTulman
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/stevetulman