Business Models Canvas 101
So you have a great idea and you want to create your company, your own startup. This is
GREAT.
Starting something on your own, creating value for you, your family and
the world is a totally recommendable thing to do. The world has been made by
people like you. Entrepreneurs, Self-Made Men, Creators, Builders people
that believed an obstacle is just another great challenge to overcome, to
solve and put behind them as an achievement.
If you want to create your own company, you need to know your environment very well and for this we give you a structure that you can follow and use, not only at the moment of creation but also on a regular base in order to assess if you are still on track or already deviating from your target. It helps you define your product, understand better your revenue streams, give you an overview about your customers and competitors, helps you define a good value proposition, decide on your various distribution Channels, focus on you Key Activities, assign correctely your Key Resources, select your Key Partners, define a adequate Cost Structure, makes you think about the Long Term Mission of your business, the strategy to reach it Strategy.
So in order to give your business idea all the chances for a success startup, it is
important to go through a few important points that should not be forgotten
before starting your race towards success. We also share with you our Excel business model canvas template or business canvas or business plan model for some.
The main part is to define clearly your business idea: this is called the
business plan and part of it is the business model which we
are discussing here.
This business model mainly looks at your company, your startup as a cloud or black box
that has stuff going in (material from suppliers, money from lenders,
workers and their work, market feedback, orders, ...), stuff going out (whatever
your are producing, marketing campaigns, salaries, taxes, waste, investments
in equipment's, people, consumable, ...) and internal processes that are the
heart, lungs and liver of your company (production or creation of your
product, finance controlling, creation of marketing campaigns, websites,
...,)
We propose to you here a business model canvas Template that is used very
frequently by many companies that want to start, restructure or just see
where they stand in terms of their business model. The Business Model Canvas was at first developed by Alexander Osterwalder a Swiss Author and Theorist.
This business model canvas Template is very easy to use and similar to a paper one as it uses the
virtual Paper Notes that you can move around the sheet.
Here is the screenshot of the full business model canvas Template sheet. We will explain here under and in
the next pages how to use it. Go to the bottom
of the page to download it.
We will go through all the blocks in this template.
Value Proposition (just hereunder),
Customer,
Channels,
Revenue Streams,
Key Activities,
Key Resources,Key Partners,
Cost Structure,
Long Term, Mission, Strategy,
Competition,
Our Example for the next 7 pages: A cupcake Factory
A business model is made of various parts.
The Value Proposition
First you have to know what you want to do (The VALUE PROPOSITION) with your business, your startup or current company and this does not start with "I
want to do money", because it has been proven a million time that money has
no lasting effect on willpower, pleasure at work, drive, etc...Of
course if you have no money at all, then your priority in the short term is
to make money to be able to grow bigger.
The only
way people are driven for the long term is by passion. So your business
model has to be driven by a passion and show the banker/investors (if you
need some) that your passion will contribute to their well being too.
In
my case, I am passionate about helping people and seeing that my efforts
have produced an added value to these customers. Some are driven by
discovering new planets, some by developing new virtual reality glasses,
some by creating new medicine, some are feeding of the wellbeing, happiness
or contentment they are producing and this is enough to drive them. At the
end it is all about you being content even better happy with what you are
doing and this leaves a lot of open avenues to explore and create a
business. I am writing here and hopefully it will have a positive effect
that in return will make me happy.
Happiness is important but making money while being happy is even better. So
that is why you have to do something you like but also that other will
benefit of.
In the case of a Cupcake factory, the business model value proposition could
be written a a few sentence: We provide to our customers a cupcake for every
occasion. These are healthy cupcakes (low sugar, low fat, ....) and we
guaranty that they are locally produced with local ingredients.
Here the questions you have to answer for the value
proposition
-
What value/products do we deliver to the customer?
-
Which customer problem do we solve?
-
Which product or set of products (can
be service too), are we offering to our customers?
-
Which are the customer problems we are solving (Example: quality, performance, design, branding,
strategy, cost reduction, pricing, risk reduction, production efficiency,
legal, etc…)
if you want to short cut, download
the business model canvas Template for Excel from here.
A SWOT Matrix (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is also used to define the strategy of your company when used
in conjunction with the business model. The SWOT matrix can also be used for
personal development, for example to compare yourself to other for a certain
situation.
For this purpose we have created this
SWOT matrix Template.
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