Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas as designed by Osterwalder & Pigneur.
A general introduction to the elements of a business model by Stanford professor Steve Blank.
10 short videos - in total about 10 minutes.
Steve Blank talks about startups, but the model is general for businesses.
Social Business Model Canvas
If your idea is not a commercial business, but rather a social business with more focus on social or environmental effects, you may find the Social Business Model Canvas more suitable.
Why
The Business Model Canvas gives you an overall framework for structuring the way the business initiative should work. And you will be able to get the big picture of the business in one (big) page.
By filling out the Business Model Canvas you will answer the core questions in any business initiative: What are we offering? How are we going to provide it? How are we going to sell it? And how do we make money?
When
The Business Model Canvas is relevant for any business project whether your scope is a start-up, an established business, a separate business unit or a new product in an established business.
Use the Business Model Canvas as early in the process as possible, but accept that you will probably need to change it later. Consider product innovation and business model innovation as two intertwined processes in constant dialogue. So make your first draft early and adapt it as you learn.
It may be an advantage to work on the Value Proposition Canvas before you build your first business model. Just to be clear about what you want to offer and why it is useful...
How
Draw or print a Business Model Canvas in big format (A0 is a good size for group work.
Start with the Customer Segments field and write down all the customer segments you can think of on separate sticky notes. Place the m on the canvas. You can focus later.
Continue doing the same with the Value Proposition field. And continue with whatever feels natural to you. But filling out the right side first may be a good hint.
Add on tool
As an add-on tool to the Business Model Canvas, you may want to use the Business Model Architect-cards.
Business Model Architect gives you a set of options to choose from in each field of the canvas, so it basically reduces the process to picking one or more cards in each category.
Read more about the Business Model Architect tool...
Resources
Books & Articles
Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur: Business Model Generation, 2010. The book that introduced the Business Model Canvas to the world. A free pdf-preveiw is available at Strategyzer.com... and it will give you the basics.
Videos
Steve Blank: How to Build a Startup
In the videos below professor Steve Blank refers to a start-up since the videos are part of a start-up course, but the content goes for any type of company.
What is a business model
A general introduction to the elements of a business model.
10 short videos - in total about 10 minutes.
Value Proposition
Customer Segments
Customer Relationship
Channels
(to be continued with more videos about the elements of a business model)