# Five-Layer Vocabulary as a Checklist

> The five layers of position, demand, monetization, economics and compound serve as a completeness grid: what to think about in a B2B SaaS company so nothing essential gets overlooked.

- Canonical URL: https://www.convios.com/en/methods/five-layer-checklist
- Language version: https://www.convios.com/de/methodik/5-schichten-checkliste
- Status: Convios practice framework
- Method library: https://www.convios.com/en/methods — Markdown: https://www.convios.com/en/methods.md

## Problem

Analyses of software companies often orbit whatever is currently visible: the product, the last funding round, a single metric. Whole dimensions stay dark, such as whether price scales with value or whether the business compounds without new customers. You need a grid that systematically covers all load-bearing dimensions.

## Approach

1. Walk the five layers in order: position (is the value obvious and unavoidable?), demand (created or merely captured?), monetization (price coupled to value?), economics (does the machine carry itself?), compound (does value grow without new customers?).
2. Record at least one solid observation per layer, or an honest "unknown".
3. Mark layers where no statement is possible as open items instead of skipping them.
4. Use the completed grid as the basis for the deeper constraint analysis.

## Example

A typical case: ahead of an investment conversation, a team prepares its view on a software vendor. Without the grid, the memo would have been a collection of product impressions and two metrics. With the checklist, it becomes obvious that nothing is known about the pricing metric or customer retention; both items go into the meeting as concrete questions. The checklist did not judge here, it exposed the blind spots.

## Limits

The checklist ensures completeness but replaces neither evaluation nor constraint analysis. The layers are not fully independent; double counting between monetization, economics and compound is possible. The grid does not apply to pre-revenue deep tech, where several layers are structurally absent.

## Metric

Grid coverage: share of layers with a solid statement versus items marked open.

## Sources

- Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present, and Future of the Concept — Communications of the Association for Information Systems 16 (Osterwalder, Pigneur, Tucci), 2005 · academic and scholarly literature · supports the underlying mechanism. Explains why a business is described through a shared, fixed vocabulary of building blocks, so that descriptions become comparable and open to discussion in the first place. The source does not show that such a framework makes assessments gap-free, and the five Convios layers do not appear in it. (https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol16/iss1/1/)
- Primary source: Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present, and Future of the Concept (https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol16/iss1/1/)

## Related

- Method: [Constraint Detection (Five-Layer Scan)](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/constraint-detection)
- Method: [Maturity Gate](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/maturity-gate)
- Method: [Descriptive Findings (30 Companies)](https://www.convios.com/en/methods/descriptive-findings)