---
id: "quote-right-number-of-models"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["¶19"]
tags: ["portfolio-strategy", "customer-centricity"]
related: ["concept-business-model-portfolio", "concept-effort-as-payment"]
speaker: "Donna Henrike Bohrer, Karolin Frankenberger and Joakim Wincent"
speakers: ["Donna Henrike Bohrer", "Karolin Frankenberger", "Joakim Wincent"]
quote: "In that sense, the “right” number of business models isn’t an abstract preference. It’s the number of distinct ways customers are already trying to buy and use the value you create."
sources: ["commercial"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-commercial"
originDay: 5
articleStem: "hbr-tier2-09-customer-workarounds"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/what-customer-workarounds-can-reveal-about-your-business-model"
sourceTitle: "What Customer Workarounds Can Reveal About Your Business Model"
---
# "The right number of business models"

> "In that sense, the 'right' number of business models isn't an abstract preference. It's the number of distinct ways customers are already trying to buy and use the value you create."
>
> — [[entity-donna-henrike-bohrer|Donna Henrike Bohrer]], [[entity-karolin-frankenberger|Karolin Frankenberger]] and [[entity-joakim-wincent|Joakim Wincent]] (¶19)

The closing synthesis: portfolio sizing is *empirical*, read off customer behavior (the workarounds), not chosen a priori. Ties [[concept-business-model-portfolio]] back to [[concept-customer-workaround]] and [[concept-effort-as-payment]] — count the distinct shadow models to count the required official ones.

**Related:** [[concept-business-model-portfolio]] · [[concept-effort-as-payment]] · [[action-map-workaround-signals]]