When the Business Model Is Dying — and What Actually Helps

The Starting Point: Death on Schedule

An entrepreneur knows his business model no longer works. No dramatic realization that overwhelms him one morning — he sees it clearly and soberly: existing customers will churn over the coming years. The small network through which he has won almost all of his deals so far no longer carries the business.

What do you do in that situation? You look for new paths. So: new customers, new offering, new growth.

The Idea: A New Service Solution

Together we developed a new service idea. It fits the zeitgeist, is easy to understand, and has a clear economic benefit for the target customers: license costs drop noticeably — and quickly. An offering with real ROI.

Sounds good. But then you do the math.

The Math Behind the Wish

Target: one million euros in revenue. That sounds like a solid benchmark. So: what does it take?

• Deal size, year 1: €50,000 (mostly services)
• Recurring revenue from year 2: ~€15,000 per customer
• Required deals: 20 to reach €1M in revenue

Now the critical part: how do you win those 20 deals — with a new offering and new customers?

Qualified first meetings via telemarketing cost around €250 per appointment in practice. At a conversion rate of 3% — which is already optimistic — you need 600 first meetings.

• Marketing cost: €150,000 just for appointment setting
• Capacity: 1 full-time role, 3 meetings/day across 200 working days

The model only breaks even from year 3 onwards. And even after ten years it would not yet replace today's revenue.

The Real Problems

Behind the numbers sit two fundamental difficulties:

• Today's business can only be replaced by massively increasing investment. That isn't a strategy — it's a bet.
• The ratio between revenue and cost is unfavorable. And it only works out if long-term customer retention holds. Another bet.

Two bets at the same time — with limited capital, and a business that simultaneously has to defend its existing revenue. That is a difficult starting position.

What Actually Helps

Three approaches that meaningfully raise the probability of success:

1. Use the access you already have

Selling to existing customers and your own network is always the fastest and cheapest path. There's a reason many manufacturers go via partners — trust and access already exist there.

2. Automate marketing and sales

The more automation you can apply across the marketing and sales process, the better the volume ratios become. That sounds easy — but it takes willingness to experiment and continuous adjustment.

3. Rethink the core offering

A significantly larger deal value changes the entire calculation. Instead of 20 deals at €50,000, maybe 5 deals at €200,000? That changes everything: marketing effort, conversion requirements, headcount planning.

What Remains

The real message of this worked example isn't that new customers are impossible to win. It's that the road to get there is almost always more expensive, slower, and riskier than assumed.

Anyone trying to transform their business model needs time, capital, and patience — or a different lever. Often that lever is right in front of them: in existing customers, in their own network, or in the offering itself.

What would you add? Where do the real levers sit in situations like this? I'd love your perspective — feel free to reach out directly.