NBM4 · NEW BUSINESS MODEL 4RAMEWORK
Turn product uncertainty into a system that learns.
A practical operating framework for discovering, validating, building, and growing products—without pretending outcomes are deterministic.
One system · four learning stages
01 / IDEA
Turn assumptions into explicit product hypotheses, define the strategic position, and decide what deserves investigation.
02 / CUSTOMER
Replace internal guesswork with evidence about the people, situations, and forces that shape demand.
03 / PRODUCT
Connect value tests, product hypotheses, and delivery artefacts so learning survives the handoff into execution.
04 / GROWTH
Evolve go-to-market, pricing, channels, and retention from evidence—not launch-day optimism.
NBM4
Built from 25+ years across Microsoft, VMware, IBM, and 20+ products.
Hypothesize → Test → Learn → Adapt
The framework
Four stages. One evidence loop.
NBM4 keeps product work connected from the first uncertain idea to repeatable growth. Each stage produces evidence for the next—and can force a return to the previous one.
01
Idea
Frame the opportunity before falling in love with the solution.
02
Customer
Understand real jobs, pains, behaviors, and constraints.
03
Product
Test the value, then build the smallest product worth loving.
04
Growth
Find repeatable acquisition, value delivery, and growth loops.
The premise
Products are hypotheses about future behavior.
Code can execute deterministically. Product outcomes never did.
NBM4 gives teams a common structure for managing that uncertainty: explicit assumptions, typed product artefacts, evidence gates, and learning loops that keep strategy connected to delivery.
Latest thinking
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NBM4
25+
Years in the field
About the author
Built in the field, not assembled from framework-shaped quotes.
Michael Kozloff has led product management, business development, and transformation work across Microsoft, VMware, IBM, startups, and more than twenty products. NBM4 is the operating framework extracted from that work—and continuously revised by new evidence.
Start with the system