Profit is the fuel of business!
Slightly worried that it looks like the only writing I am doing is reviewing other people’s writing. Nothing could be further from the truth but my own thoughts are taking a while to get to the point I’m ready to share! Book reviews are just easier because I am reading them anyway!
Full transparency I’m also one of the reviewers of the book, providing feedback through it’s development. Jason Tanner and Luke Hohmann are both veterans of the software industry who bring a ton of expertise to bear in crafting this book, it is clearly a labour of love.
First Impressions
Luke himself called this book beautiful when I interviewed him for Talking Roadmaps, and he is right, it is. He told me that they literally drew the pages as they were developing the book and then their designer, Federico González, made them come to life.
It has a similar design to the Strategyzer books that we all love. It has the same landscape layout with lots of visuals that are the focus, then the words delve even further - helping you get deep insights.
The Scope
The table of contents is as follows:
Software Profit Streams
Software Solutions
Profit Streams
System Thinking
Navigating the Future
Profit Stream Canvas
Overview
Solution Sustainability
Economic Sustainability
Relationship Sustainability
Applications
New Solution Development
When Software Eats Hardware
Spinouts / Carve-outs
Solution Lifecycle Management
Continuing your journey
“ProfitStreams is a great new approach to addressing the business side of software-enabled solutions. For example, it rolls in the often forgotten concepts like licensing to the model, creating a more complete picture but still using a simple 1-page canvas, like we all love.”
The scope of this book is, it brings together many disparate elements into a single cohesive perspective and tool which will allow you to take a more full view of your software enabled solutions, and ultimately how it should make money.
Navigating uncertainty
Roadmaps are obviously an area of particular interest for me so it’s no surprise that the section in the book that covers that was where I dug deep for new insights. The language of market rhythms and events gave me a name for something that I had know about but never had a name for.
Putting roadmaps in a context as a way to navigate uncertainty is a perfect way to look at them. The relationship to what is happening outside the business, in the world and the market, as well as to delivery artefacts like the backlog is spot on with the Profit Stream Canvas providing the connecting thread between things works to help you navigate to your north star.
Using “Prune the Product Tree” as a form of growth roadmap is also a great insight, and one I will be trying out as I’ve never used it in that context but I can see how it would work really well.
A Holistic View of Software Enabled Solutions
The book sets out to create a useful tool and framework that is holistic for software enabled solutions. It covers the external and the internal; it covers the customer and the company; it covers getting paid and paying for things, in particular licensing and pricing; it covers compliance. In short it covers most anything you can think of!
The Canvas
The Profit Stream Canvas feels a little odd at first glance, after playing with it for a while that feeling goes away though as it all makes sense. I think the reason it feels odd is that it doesn’t follow the same box layout as familiar tools like the Business Model Canvas, that may others have taken and adapted.
The design allows you to clearly zoom in on different aspects, like Customer Benefit Analysis, pricing, Solution Cost and ROI. How to do that analysis and the boxes to look at is clearly spelt out in the book making it highly practical too!
Critical Thoughts
Is it too big? Does it take on too much? My biggest negative is how big it is, but it couldn’t be anything else give how huge the subject is that it takes one!
Many aspects of the content are covered in isolation elsewhere but I don’t believe the holistic view is taken on anywhere. The size and breadth of it might scare some people away though, it runs to 360ish pages. If you compare that to Business Model Generation or Value Proposition Design that both run to 270-80ish pages there is nearly a quarter as much again. Never-the-less I know I’ll be happy to have it on my bookshelf.
Final Thoughts
4.5 / 5 ⭐️s
Overall the ProfitStream concept is a great addition to the Business Model, Value Stream, etc space bringing in areas that are too often not given enough consideration. The canvas at the heart of the book gives a great tool that makes it practical to approach too.
Check out the website for the book here and grab yourself a copy!
