Core–Expansion–Bets Portfolio Model
A portfolio framework for allocating product investment across sustaining, growing, and exploratory work in proportion to organizational maturity.
Context
Most B2B SaaS product portfolios are implicitly over-indexed on core work (sustaining existing revenue) at the expense of expansion and bets. This framework makes the allocation explicit and provides rationale for adjusting it.
Model Explanation
Core (sustaining, ~60–70%) Work that protects existing revenue and existing customers. Reliability, performance, compliance, enterprise features requested by top accounts. Not exciting but mission-critical. Absence of investment here produces churn and contraction.
Expansion (growing, ~20–30%) Work that grows the addressable market, improves monetization, or enables new customer segments to convert. New packaging tiers, workflow automation, integration ecosystem, upmarket features.
Bets (exploratory, ~10–15%) Time-boxed explorations into adjacent markets, new delivery models, or capability investments with unclear near-term ROI. AI features, platform plays, new verticals. Disciplined bets have defined kill criteria and exit conditions.
Application
Use this model in:
- Annual or quarterly planning to audit where investment is actually going
- Roadmap reviews where stakeholders are pushing for more bets than the business can absorb
- Board or executive conversations about product investment thesis
The allocation should shift based on business stage: earlier-stage companies can tolerate higher bets allocation; later-stage companies protecting large revenue bases typically require higher core allocation.
Decision Impact
Making portfolio allocation explicit converts implicit debates about priorities into explicit conversations about risk tolerance and business stage. It also creates accountability: if the bets allocation is 15%, teams cannot justify consuming 40% of capacity on exploratory work.