Everything you must know to start a business is summarized in the one page Business Model Canvas (BMC).  The canvas is made up of 9 building blocks which maps out how a company does business.  This refers to how the association creates, delivers and captures value.

This means you don’t have to waste time or procrastinate trying to come up with the perfect plan with hundreds of pages.  You can project 5 to 10 years ahead in a traditional business plan but you’ll soon realize that things don’t go perfectly as planned.  The BMC is better because it’s flexible.  It allows you to adapt, make changes and adjustments while keeping the big picture in mind.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson

THE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

Value Propositions

This is in the middle of the canvas because it’s the heart of the BMC.  It deals with questions such as: Which customer’s needs is your company satisfying?  What products or services is your company offering to the customer?  What value does your company give to the customers?  And ultimately, which one of the customer’s problems is your company helping to solve?

Key Partners

Who are your company’s main suppliers and partners in helping to deliver the goods and services to the customer?  What are your partner’s strengths and weaknesses?

Key Activities

These are jobs that have to be done in order for your company to stay afloat: acquiring new, maintaining customer relationships and having efficient distribution channels.

Key Resources

What key resources are required?  What are your company’s distribution channels? How is your company’s relationship with key partners?  What are your company’s revenue streams?

Cost Structure

The key activities, key resources and key partners sum up your cost structure.  This deals with which resources and activities that are crucial and which that ones are most expensive.  This will show you which ones to allocate the appropriate resources to.

Customer Relationships

What kind of relationship do your customers expect the company to establish and maintain?  How strong and loyal are your customer base?  How costly is it for your company to acquire new and maintain existing customers?

Customer Segments

Who are the most loyal and important customers?  Which demographics make up your customer base?

Channels

How do the customers want to be reached?  This could be through advertisement in social media for example.  How is your company already reaching them?  Which channels work best and most efficient?  How do the channels fit in with the customer’s routines?

Revenue Streams

Customer relationships, segments, and channels make up the revenue streams.  They are the values the customers are really willing to pay for.  What and how are they currently paying?  How would they prefer to pay?

This concludes everything you must know to start a business.  The rest is executing and taking actions.  If you find this useful, like, share, and leave comments.  See similar post: Worst Investment Most People Make