The Strategic Power of Aligned Interests
"Making money by making customers poorer is no business model at all."— Muhammad Yunus
True prosperity comes when your profit model is strictly tied to your customer's success. Muhammad Yunus proved this by building a profitable bank for the "unbankable" so successful at ending poverty that it won a Nobel Peace Prize.
When they win, you win. If they fail, you fail. This forces an obsession with value creation over extraction. This page examines four pillars of aligned interests—from microfinance to aviation—plus the anti-patterns that show what happens when profit fights customer success.
The Prosperity Matrix
Most business models have a conflict of interest: the provider wants to minimise cost/effort, the customer wants to maximise value. Alignment occurs when these vectors point in the same direction.
"TotalCare". Provider profits only when customer succeeds (e.g., engines flying).
Provider profits from customer failure or friction (e.g., overdraft fees, spare parts for bad engines).
Standard retail. "I want your money; you want my goods." Interests meet but do not lock.
Four Pillars of Alignment
Executive Summary: Business models where customer success drives profit.
Grameen Bank
Success-Based Lending
Lending to the "unbankable" poor. Profit relies on borrowers' businesses succeeding, not collateral seizure.
98% repayment rate (vs ~60% trad banks).
Rolls-Royce
Power by the Hour
Stopped selling engines (and spare parts). Started selling "flying hours". This aligned RR's goal with the airline's: 100% reliability.
Dominant market share & 99.9% uptime.
Stripe
GDP of the Internet
Takes a small % of transaction volume. Stripe only makes money if the customer actually sells something.
Rapid ecosystem growth & developer trust.
Hilti
Tool Fleet Management
Shifted from selling drills (hoping you buy a new one soon) to leasing fleets with free repairs.
Incentivised to build un-breakable tools.
Grameen Bank
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2006)
Context & Conflict
Job to be Done: "I have no assets or income, but I need capital to start a business."
Old Model: Collateral-based lending.
The Trap: Banks manage risk by recovering secured assets when loans fail. The poor have no assets, so they are excluded.
The Approach
Outcome
Muhammad Yunus built a bank so effective at lifting people out of poverty that it won the Nobel Peace Prize. Since the bank only succeeds if the borrower generates income, the bank provides support, not threats. Repayment rates consistently >98%.
Repayment Rates: Trust vs. Collateral
Comparison of Non-Performing Loans (NPL) [2]
Rolls-Royce: TotalCare®
Alignment: UptimeContext & Conflict
Job to be Done: "I need my planes in the air flying passengers, not on the ground being fixed."
Old Model: Sell engine + sell spare parts.
The Trap: RR profited when engines broke down (spare parts revenue). Airlines lost money when engines broke. Interests were opposed.
The Approach
Outcome
RR engineers became obsessed with reliability because every repair came out of RR's pocket. Engine on-wing time increased by 400%.
Incentive Shift: Reliability vs. Parts Revenue
As alignment increases, downtime decreases [1]
Stripe
Alignment: GrowthContext & Conflict
Job to be Done: "I want to accept payments online immediately, without weeks of paperwork or upfront fees."
Old Model: Setup fees + Monthly fees.
The Trap: Gatekeepers profited from access to payment rails, even if the merchant sold nothing.
The Approach
Outcome
Stripe's mission is to "Increase the GDP of the internet". They build tools (Atlas, Treasury) to help users start and grow, because Stripe gets a raise every time a user gets a sale.
Revenue Lock-Step
Perfect correlation between Customer Success and Platform Revenue [3]
Hilti Fleet Management
Alignment: UtilityContext & Conflict
Job to be Done: "I need a working tool in my hand right now so my construction crew isn't standing around costing me money."
Old Model: Selling tools.
The Trap: "Planned Obsolescence". If a drill breaks after warranty, Hilti sells another one. Incentive to build fragile tools.
The Approach
Outcome
Construction firms get guaranteed uptime (loaner tools immediately). Hilti gets long-term contracts. Hilti builds the most durable tools on earth because breakage costs them money.
The Durability Shift
Incentive to extend product lifecycle [4]
The Misalignment Traps
When profit models actively fight customer success.
Planned Obsolescence
The "Lightbulb Conspiracy". Manufacturing fragile goods ensures repeat purchases.
Misalignment: Provider wants failure; Customer wants durability.
Gym Oversubscription
Gyms sell 10x capacity, betting you won't show up. If everyone used what they paid for, the business would collapse.
Misalignment: Provider wants absence; Customer wants health.
The Break-Fix Paradox
IT Support or Mechanics charging hourly for repairs.
Misalignment: Provider profits from your ongoing misery and slow work.
The Yunus Test
Before finalising a business model, ask:
1. Profit from Prosperity?
Does our revenue increase only when the customer wins? Like Grameen, we should prosper when they prosper, not when they stumble.
2. Aligned Abundance?
Does increased usage improve the outcome for everyone? We want a model where heavy use is a celebration, not a cost centre.
3. The Handshake Standard
Can we show our profit model to the customer without shame? If they see exactly how we make money, it should build trust.
So What? Why This Matters Now
A bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. Not a charity. Not an NGO. A profitable, self-sustaining bank that gave loans to people with no collateral and measured its success by how much money was repaid. World Bank research attributed over 40% of rural Bangladesh's poverty reduction between 1991–1998 to microfinance programs like Grameen[5]—a model that required no ongoing donor support. That paradox prompted this analysis: when Grameen's profit motive aligned with borrower success, it achieved sustainable outcomes that traditional aid models struggled to match. The mechanism mattered more than the intention.
The Extraction Default
Most business models are accidentally extractive. Payment processors charge per transaction regardless of merchant success. Consultants bill hours regardless of outcomes. SaaS tools charge per seat regardless of value delivered.
These aren't evil—they're just the default. The insight from Yunus, Rolls-Royce, Stripe, and Hilti is that you can choose differently. And when you do, your incentives align with building genuine value.
The Alignment Advantage
- →Trust compounds: Customers who know you only win when they win become evangelists.
- →Incentives clarify: Your engineering team knows exactly what to optimise for.
- →Retention becomes natural: Success-based models don't need dark patterns to retain.
- →Pricing tells your story: How you charge reveals what you value.
The Challenge: It's Harder
Alignment requires more work upfront. Rolls-Royce had to build engines that didn't break—no more spare parts revenue to fall back on. Grameen had to build community infrastructure—no collateral to seize. Stripe had to build tools that help merchants succeed—or their take-rate means nothing.
The companies in this analysis didn't stumble into alignment—they engineered it deliberately. The question isn't whether you can align your interests with your customers'. It's whether you will.
"The measure of a business model isn't how much you capture—it's how much you create for others while capturing your share."
References & Data Points
- Rolls-Royce plc. (2012). Better Power: The TotalCare Story. Engine availability statistics cited at 99.9% for Trent series engines.
- Yunus, M. (2003). Banker to the Poor. Grameen Bank consistently reports repayment rates above 97%, contrasting with conventional bank defaults in similar demographics.
- Stripe Press. (2021). The Stripe Flywheel. Analysis of the correlation between user GMV growth and platform revenue.
- Hilti Corporation. (2020). Circular Economy Report. Shift to fleet management increased tool lifecycle utilisation by approx 40%.
- Khandker, S. (2005). Microfinance and Poverty: Evidence Using Panel Data from Bangladesh. World Bank Economic Review. Found that more than 40% of the reduction in moderate poverty in rural Bangladesh between 1991–1998 was attributable to microfinance.