Michael Rappa has a great article summarizing the various types of business models. It is a concise way of analyzing various possible models for a startup idea. The same service or product may be adopted to offline and online business models and have an impact on the overall success of the business.
He categorizes all business models into the following groups: Brokerage, Advertising, Infomediary, Merchant, Manufacturer (Direct), Affiliate, Community, Subscription, Utility A similar study from MIT classifies it differently and also points out that the selection of the model fundamentally determines the success of the venture as much as the product or service:
Alex Osterwalder is one of the consultants focused on business model creation vs product idea creation. For many great companies business model was much more important than product idea (Dell, Toyota). These companies realized that well executed business models are much harder to imitate than products.
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