Product Templates
Ten Product Templates, each defined by kind, supply, worker, Interfaces, buyer, earning model, and assurance.
A Product Template is a reusable definition of one kind of Product: what it sells, who supplies the work, who buys, and how it earns. Ten templates cover every Product a Startup sells.
Seven dimensions
| Dimension | Values | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | data, software, agent, service | Which Builder builds it |
| Supply | digital, human | Whether demand is the only constraint |
| Worker | agents, humans, agents-and-humans | Who does each unit of work |
| Interfaces | api, sdk, cli, mcp, webhooks | How Customers and their Agents reach it |
| Who buys | human, agent, human-or-agent | Which Motions fit |
| Earning model | subscription, usage, commerce, marketplace, directory | How money arrives |
| Assurance | One sentence | What the Customer relies on |
SoftwareBuilder builds every data, software, and agent Product. ServiceBuilder builds service Products and joins any template with human supply. SalesBuilder sells them all.
Each Product Template page opens with its business. It names the earning model and typical Prices, the Demand Budget first revenue needs, the one Metric per state, and its seed and compounding Plays.
Supply sets the work
Digital supply has no ceiling. Software and Agents serve the thousandth Customer the way they served the first, so a digital-supply Startup needs only demand.
Supply from people is finite: they are recruited, credentialed, scheduled, and paid. A human-supply template adds the Supplier onboarding, Credentialing, Dispatch, and Earnings Systems. It also adds an App where Suppliers take work.
Built from
Product Templates compose. Each one names the templates it is built from and inherits their Systems, Processes, and Roles.
Read as text
- Headless SaaS is built from Dataset API.
- SaaS is built from Headless SaaS.
- Directory is built from Dataset API.
- Marketplace is built from Directory.
- Licensed-human marketplace is built from Marketplace.
- Agent as a Service is built from Headless SaaS.
- Services-as-Software is built from Agent as a Service.
- E2E managed service is built from Services-as-Software.
- Dropship store is built from Headless SaaS.
A Startup sells as many Products as it likes, each from its own template. A tax-research Startup sells its rulings as a Dataset API. Over the same records, it sells a filing review as Services-as-Software.
Goods ship from upstream
A Startup holds no stock. Physical goods sell only through the Dropship store: the Startup lists and sells them. An upstream holds the stock and ships each Order, and tracking passes through to the Customer.
The catalog
| Product Template | Kind | Supply | Buyer | Earning model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dataset API | data | digital | human-or-agent | usage |
| Headless SaaS | software | digital | human-or-agent | usage |
| SaaS | software | digital | human | subscription |
| Directory | data | digital | human-or-agent | directory |
| Marketplace | software | human | human-or-agent | marketplace |
| Licensed-human marketplace | service | human | human-or-agent | marketplace |
| Agent as a Service | agent | digital | human-or-agent | usage |
| Services-as-Software | service | digital | human-or-agent | usage |
| E2E managed service | service | human | human | subscription |
| Dropship store | software | digital | human-or-agent | commerce |