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Do you understand your value exchange model? The economic value of a software-enabled solution is the benefits a customer receives less their costs.  How a customer exchanges money for this value represents a critical design decision for product leaders with substantial, long-term implications for their underlying technical and business architectures as well as the sustainability of their solution.  Design choices made by business leaders about value exchange directly influence the profitability of the software-enabled solution’s business model.

I have years of fond memories of Thanksgiving Dinner. As a child growing up outside of Buffalo, NY, we’d play downstairs while the parents prepared the meal upstairs. Then, when the time came, we helped set the table, schlepping food up and down the stairs. Finally, following some words of thanks, the entire family would eat, and then the adults would return upstairs, doing… well, adult stuff. But, of course, that adult stuff wasn’t our concern because we kids went back to goofing around, often outside if it wasn’t too cold.

Are you a product manager and wondering "How can I increase profit?" Well first. It's important to ask, "What is profit?" It's the net income that results from revenue minus expenses such as salaries, product costs, and sales and marketing. It fuels sustainable business. So, why do product managers fail to maximize or increase profit?  One of the root causes is that product managers often fail to recognize and leverage the unique characteristics of software. To help you increase profit, I’m going to share 10 ways software differs from other kinds of offerings, notably physical goods. Understanding these differences is fundamental to creating pricing and licensing strategies that maximize profit.