business model canvas ou business plan

Business Model Canvas: Explained with Examples

Got a new business idea, but don’t know how to put it to work? Want to improve your existing business model? Overwhelmed by writing your business plan? There is a one-page technique that can provide you the solution you are looking for, and that’s the business model canvas.

In this guide, you’ll have the Business Model Canvas explained, along with steps on how to create one. All business model canvas examples in the post can be edited online.

What is a Business Model Canvas

A business model is simply a plan describing how a business intends to make money. It explains who your customer base is and how you deliver value to them and the related details of financing. And the business model canvas lets you define these different components on a single page.   

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool that lets you visualize and assess your business idea or concept. It’s a one-page document containing nine boxes that represent different fundamental elements of a business.  

The business model canvas beats the traditional business plan that spans across several pages, by offering a much easier way to understand the different core elements of a business.

The right side of the canvas focuses on the customer or the market (external factors that are not under your control) while the left side of the canvas focuses on the business (internal factors that are mostly under your control). In the middle, you get the value propositions that represent the exchange of value between your business and your customers.

The business model canvas was originally developed by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and introduced in their book ‘ Business Model Generation ’ as a visual framework for planning, developing and testing the business model(s) of an organization.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Business Model Canvas

Why do you need a business model canvas? The answer is simple. The business model canvas offers several benefits for businesses and entrepreneurs. It is a valuable tool and provides a visual and structured approach to designing, analyzing, optimizing, and communicating your business model.

• The business model canvas provides a comprehensive overview of a business model’s essential aspects. The BMC provides a quick outline of the business model and is devoid of unnecessary details compared to the traditional business plan.
• The comprehensive overview also ensures that the team considers all required components of their business model and can identify gaps or areas for improvement.
• The BMC allows the team to have a holistic and shared understanding of the business model while enabling them to align and collaborate effectively.
• The visual nature of the business model canvas makes it easier to refer to and understand by anyone. The business model canvas combines all vital business model elements in a single, easy-to-understand canvas.
• The BMC can be considered a strategic analysis tool as it enables you to examine a business model’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.
• It’s easier to edit and can be easily shared with employees and stakeholders.
• The BMC is a flexible and adaptable tool that can be updated and revised as the business evolves. Keep your business agile and responsive to market changes and customer needs.
• The business model canvas can be used by large corporations and startups with just a few employees.
• The business model canvas effectively facilitates discussions among team members, investors, partners, customers, and other stakeholders. It clarifies how different aspects of the business are related and ensures a shared understanding of the business model.
• You can use a BMC template to facilitate discussions and guide brainstorming brainstorming sessions to generate insights and ideas to refine the business model and make strategic decisions.
• The BMC is action-oriented, encouraging businesses to identify activities and initiatives to improve their business model to drive business growth.
• A business model canvas provides a structured approach for businesses to explore possibilities and experiment with new ideas. This encourages creativity and innovation, which in turn encourages team members to think outside the box.

How to Make a Business Model Canvas

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a business canvas model.

Step 1: Gather your team and the required material Bring a team or a group of people from your company together to collaborate. It is better to bring in a diverse group to cover all aspects.

While you can create a business model canvas with whiteboards, sticky notes, and markers, using an online platform like Creately will ensure that your work can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Create a workspace in Creately and provide editing/reviewing permission to start.

Step 2: Set the context Clearly define the purpose and the scope of what you want to map out and visualize in the business model canvas. Narrow down the business or idea you want to analyze with the team and its context.

Step 3: Draw the canvas Divide the workspace into nine equal sections to represent the nine building blocks of the business model canvas.

Step 4: Identify the key building blocks Label each section as customer segment, value proposition, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, and cost structure.

Step 5: Fill in the canvas Work with your team to fill in each section of the canvas with relevant information. You can use data, keywords, diagrams, and more to represent ideas and concepts.

Step 6: Analyze and iterate Once your team has filled in the business model canvas, analyze the relationships to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. Discuss improvements and make adjustments as necessary.

Step 7: Finalize Finalize and use the model as a visual reference to communicate and align your business model with stakeholders. You can also use the model to make informed and strategic decisions and guide your business.

What are the Key Building Blocks of the Business Model Canvas?

There are nine building blocks in the business model canvas and they are:

Customer Segments

Customer relationships, revenue streams, key activities, key resources, key partners, cost structure.

• Value Proposition

When filling out a Business Model Canvas, you will brainstorm and conduct research on each of these elements. The data you collect can be placed in each relevant section of the canvas. So have a business model canvas ready when you start the exercise.  

Let’s look into what the 9 components of the BMC are in more detail.

These are the groups of people or companies that you are trying to target and sell your product or service to.

Segmenting your customers based on similarities such as geographical area, gender, age, behaviors, interests, etc. gives you the opportunity to better serve their needs, specifically by customizing the solution you are providing them.

After a thorough analysis of your customer segments, you can determine who you should serve and ignore. Then create customer personas for each of the selected customer segments.

There are different customer segments a business model can target and they are;

• Mass market: A business model that focuses on mass markets doesn’t group its customers into segments. Instead, it focuses on the general population or a large group of people with similar needs. For example, a product like a phone.  
• Niche market: Here the focus is centered on a specific group of people with unique needs and traits. Here the value propositions, distribution channels, and customer relationships should be customized to meet their specific requirements. An example would be buyers of sports shoes.
• Segmented: Based on slightly different needs, there could be different groups within the main customer segment. Accordingly, you can create different value propositions, distribution channels, etc. to meet the different needs of these segments.
• Diversified: A diversified market segment includes customers with very different needs.
• Multi-sided markets: this includes interdependent customer segments. For example, a credit card company caters to both their credit card holders as well as merchants who accept those cards.

Use STP Model templates for segmenting your market and developing ideal marketing campaigns

Visualize, assess, and update your business model. Collaborate on brainstorming with your team on your next business model innovation.

In this section, you need to establish the type of relationship you will have with each of your customer segments or how you will interact with them throughout their journey with your company.

There are several types of customer relationships

• Personal assistance: you interact with the customer in person or by email, through phone call or other means.
• Dedicated personal assistance: you assign a dedicated customer representative to an individual customer.  
• Self-service: here you maintain no relationship with the customer, but provides what the customer needs to help themselves.
• Automated services: this includes automated processes or machinery that helps customers perform services themselves.
• Communities: these include online communities where customers can help each other solve their own problems with regard to the product or service.
• Co-creation: here the company allows the customer to get involved in the designing or development of the product. For example, YouTube has given its users the opportunity to create content for its audience.

You can understand the kind of relationship your customer has with your company through a customer journey map . It will help you identify the different stages your customers go through when interacting with your company. And it will help you make sense of how to acquire, retain and grow your customers.

This block is to describe how your company will communicate with and reach out to your customers. Channels are the touchpoints that let your customers connect with your company.

Channels play a role in raising awareness of your product or service among customers and delivering your value propositions to them. Channels can also be used to allow customers the avenue to buy products or services and offer post-purchase support.

There are two types of channels

• Owned channels: company website, social media sites, in-house sales, etc.
• Partner channels: partner-owned websites, wholesale distribution, retail, etc.

Revenues streams are the sources from which a company generates money by selling their product or service to the customers. And in this block, you should describe how you will earn revenue from your value propositions.  

A revenue stream can belong to one of the following revenue models,

• Transaction-based revenue: made from customers who make a one-time payment
• Recurring revenue: made from ongoing payments for continuing services or post-sale services

There are several ways you can generate revenue from

• Asset sales: by selling the rights of ownership for a product to a buyer
• Usage fee: by charging the customer for the use of its product or service
• Subscription fee: by charging the customer for using its product regularly and consistently
• Lending/ leasing/ renting: the customer pays to get exclusive rights to use an asset for a fixed period of time
• Licensing: customer pays to get permission to use the company’s intellectual property
• Brokerage fees: revenue generated by acting as an intermediary between two or more parties
• Advertising: by charging the customer to advertise a product, service or brand using company platforms

What are the activities/ tasks that need to be completed to fulfill your business purpose? In this section, you should list down all the key activities you need to do to make your business model work.

These key activities should focus on fulfilling its value proposition, reaching customer segments and maintaining customer relationships, and generating revenue.

There are 3 categories of key activities;

• Production: designing, manufacturing and delivering a product in significant quantities and/ or of superior quality.
• Problem-solving: finding new solutions to individual problems faced by customers.
• Platform/ network: Creating and maintaining platforms. For example, Microsoft provides a reliable operating system to support third-party software products.

This is where you list down which key resources or the main inputs you need to carry out your key activities in order to create your value proposition.

There are several types of key resources and they are

• Human (employees)
• Financial (cash, lines of credit, etc.)
• Intellectual (brand, patents, IP, copyright)
• Physical (equipment, inventory, buildings)

Key partners are the external companies or suppliers that will help you carry out your key activities. These partnerships are forged in oder to reduce risks and acquire resources.

Types of partnerships are

• Strategic alliance: partnership between non-competitors
• Coopetition: strategic partnership between partners
• Joint ventures: partners developing a new business
• Buyer-supplier relationships: ensure reliable supplies

In this block, you identify all the costs associated with operating your business model.

You’ll need to focus on evaluating the cost of creating and delivering your value propositions, creating revenue streams, and maintaining customer relationships. And this will be easier to do so once you have defined your key resources, activities, and partners.  

Businesses can either be cost-driven (focuses on minimizing costs whenever possible) and value-driven (focuses on providing maximum value to the customer).

Value Propositions

This is the building block that is at the heart of the business model canvas. And it represents your unique solution (product or service) for a problem faced by a customer segment, or that creates value for the customer segment.

A value proposition should be unique or should be different from that of your competitors. If you are offering a new product, it should be innovative and disruptive. And if you are offering a product that already exists in the market, it should stand out with new features and attributes.

Value propositions can be either quantitative (price and speed of service) or qualitative (customer experience or design).

What to Avoid When Creating a Business Model Canvas

One thing to remember when creating a business model canvas is that it is a concise and focused document. It is designed to capture key elements of a business model and, as such, should not include detailed information. Some of the items to avoid include,

• Detailed financial projections such as revenue forecasts, cost breakdowns, and financial ratios. Revenue streams and cost structure should be represented at a high level, providing an overview rather than detailed projections.
• Detailed operational processes such as standard operating procedures of a business. The BMC focuses on the strategic and conceptual aspects.
• Comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. The business model canvas does not provide space for comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. These should be included in marketing or sales plans, which allow you to expand into more details.
• Legal or regulatory details such as intellectual property, licensing agreements, or compliance requirements. As these require more detailed and specialized attention, they are better suited to be addressed in separate legal or regulatory documents.
• Long-term strategic goals or vision statements. While the canvas helps to align the business model with the overall strategy, it should focus on the immediate and tangible aspects.
• Irrelevant or unnecessary information that does not directly relate to the business model. Including extra or unnecessary information can clutter the BMC and make it less effective in communicating the core elements.

What Are Your Thoughts on the Business Model Canvas?

Once you have completed your business model canvas, you can share it with your organization and stakeholders and get their feedback as well. The business model canvas is a living document, therefore after completing it you need to revisit and ensure that it is relevant, updated and accurate.

What best practices do you follow when creating a business model canvas? Do share your tips with us in the comments section below.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

FAQs About the Business Model Canvas

• Use clear and concise language
• Use visual-aids
• Customize for your audience
• Highlight key insights
• Be open to feedback and discussion

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Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

Business Plan vs Business Model Canvas Explained

6 min. read

Updated December 15, 2023

It might be stating the obvious, but planning and preparation are keys to success in business.

After all, entrepreneurs put in hard work to develop their product, understand the market they plan to serve, assess their competitive landscape and funding needs, and much more.

Successful business owners also take time to document their strategies for guiding the growth of their companies. They use these strategies to take advantage of new opportunities and pivot away from threats.

Two common frameworks for documenting strategies – the business model canvas and the business plan – are also among the easiest to get confused.

Though they can complement each other, a business model canvas and a business plan are different in ways worth understanding for any entrepreneur who’s refining their business concept and strategy.

Let’s start by digging deeper into what a business model canvas is. 

• What is a business model canvas?

You may have heard the term “business model” before. Every company has one. 

Your business model is just a description of how your business will generate revenue. In other words, it’s a snapshot of the ways your business will be profitable.

Writing a business plan is one way of explaining a company’s business model. The business model canvas takes a different approach.

A business model canvas is a one-page template that explains your business model and provides an overview of your:

• Relationships with key partners
• Financial structure
• And more…

While the business model is a statement of fact, the business model canvas is a strategic process—a method for either documenting or determining your business model.

It’s meant to be quickly and easily updated as a business better understands what it needs to be successful over time. This makes it especially useful for startups and newer businesses that are still trying to determine their business model.

You can think of a business model canvas as a condensed, summarized, and simplified version of a business plan. It’s a great way to quickly document an idea and get started on the planning process.

The business plan is a way to expand on the ideas from the canvas and flesh out more details on strategy and implementation.

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Components of a Business Model Canvas

The simplest way to think about your business model canvas is to map it out visually. A business model canvas covers nine key areas:

• Value proposition : A company’s unique offering in the market and why it will be successful.
• Key activities: The actions that a company takes to achieve its value proposition.
• Customer segments : The types of people or businesses that are likely to want a company’s products or services.
• Channels : How a company reaches customers through marketing and distribution efforts.
• Customer relationships: How a company interacts with customers and maintains important relationships.
• Revenue streams: The ways in which a company makes money.
• Key resources: The assets such as property, equipment and staffing that a company needs to perform its key activities.
• Key partners: The relationships with suppliers, vendors, customers and other stakeholders a company must maintain in order to be successful.
• Cost structure: The major drivers of company expenses that will need to be tracked and managed.

[Want an even simpler alternative? Try downloading our free one-page plan template and start building your plan in less than 30 minutes.]

To get a better sense of how a business model canvas documents business strategy, consider a company like Netflix. The streaming company’s business model is based on generating subscription revenue through its content library and exclusive content.

If Netflix executives were to create a business model canvas, it would map out how the company leverages key resources, partnerships, and activities to achieve its value proposition and drive profitability. The business model is the destination.

The great thing about a business model canvas is that you can quickly document business ideas and see how a business might work at a high level. As you do more research, you’ll quickly refine your canvas until you have a business idea you think will work.

From there, you expand into a full business plan.

• What is a business plan?

If a business model canvas captures what a company looks like when it’s operating successfully, then a business plan is a more detailed version along with a company’s blueprint for getting there.

Think of your business plan as a process of laying out your goals and your strategies for achieving them.

The business plan is more detailed, and changes over time. It examines each aspect of your business, from operations to marketing and financials.

The plan often includes forward-looking forecasts of a company’s projected financial performance. These are always educated guesses. But these forecasts can also be used as a management tool for any growing business.

Comparing actual results to the forecast can be a valuable reality check, telling a business if they’re on track to meet their goals or if they need to adjust their plan.

A business plan is also a must for companies hoping to receive a bank loan , SBA loan , or other form of outside investment . Anyone putting up funds to help you grow will want to see you’ve done your homework.

So a business plan is how you not only prepare yourself, but also show your audience that you’re prepared.

Components of a business plan

While there are several different types of business plans meant for different uses, well-written plans will cover these common areas:

• Executive summary : A brief (1-2 pages) overview of your business.
• Products and services : Detailed descriptions of what you’re selling and how it fills a need in the market.
• Market analysis : Assessing the size of your market, and information about your customers such as demographics (age, income level) and psychographics (interests, values).
• Competitive analysis : Documenting existing businesses and solutions your target customers are finding in the market.
• Marketing and sales plan : Your strategies for positioning your product or service in the market, and developing a customer base.  
• Operations plan : Describing how you will run the business from day to day, including how you will manage inventory, equipment, and staff.
• Organization and management team: Detailing the legal structure of the business, as well as key members, their backgrounds and qualifications.
• Financial Plans : Business financials that measure a company’s performance and health, including profit & loss statements, cash flow statements and balance sheets. Effective financial plans also include forward-looking sales forecasts and expense budgets.

How a business plan and business model canvas inform business strategy

Avoid the trap of using the two terms interchangeably. As we’ve shown, the two have different focuses and purposes. 

The business model canvas (or our one-page plan template ) is a great starting point for mapping out your initial strategy. Both are easy to iterate on as you test ideas and determine what’s feasible.

Once you have a clearer sense of your idea, you can expand the canvas or one-page plan into a business plan that digs into details like your operations plan, marketing strategy, and financial forecast.

When you understand how – and when – to use each, you can speed up the entire planning process. That’s because the business model canvas lays out the foundation of your venture’s feasibility and potential, while the business plan provides a roadmap for getting there.

The work of business planning is about connecting the dots between the potential and the process.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

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• How both inform your strategy

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The Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool. It allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot your business model. This method from the bestselling management book Business Model Generation is applied in leading organizations and start-ups worldwide.

The Business Model Canvas enables you to:

• Visualize and communicate a simple story of your existing business model.
• Use the canvas to design new business models, whether you are a start-up or an existing businessManage a portfolio of business models
• You can use the canvas to easily juggle between "Explore" and "Exploit" business models.

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A Better Way to Think About Your Business Model

• Alexander Osterwalder

How Nespresso used a simple business model canvas to change face of the coffee industry.

The business model canvas — as opposed to the traditional, intricate business plan — helps organizations conduct structured, tangible, and strategic conversations around new businesses or existing ones. Leading global companies like GE, P&G, and Nestlé use the canvas to manage strategy or create new growth engines, while start-ups use it in their search for the right business model. The canvas’s main objective is to help companies move beyond product-centric thinking and towards business model thinking.

• Alexander Osterwalder is cofounder of Strategyzer.com , a company that builds practical tools for business strategy and innovation. Together with Yves Pigneur, he invented the Business Model Canvas and co-authored the international bestsellers  Business Model Generation  and  Value Proposition Design .

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The Business Model Canvas Guide: Examples, Structure, and Expert Tips

Recent decades saw viral changes in business approaches. The primary trend in those changes is leveraging mobility and clarity. With the tech boom, the business processes speeded up, so businesses needed to adapt and involve flexible approaches. Such methods allow you to quickly adapt to the changing business environment and make the necessary decisions.

Similar transformations came into business planning. Business model canvas replaced lengthy business plans that consume time and considerable resources to develop. Adjusting a business plan as your company evolves would be challenging with this expense. So, business model canvas came to resolve this problem.

Business model canvas is a template helping to develop a strategy for managing your business. It comprises nine blocks covering your audience, resources, partnerships, and other aspects required for your business evolution. This template lets you understand your business progress and make necessary corrections anytime.

This article discusses the concept of the business model canvas and how it helps companies develop. Read on to understand the main blocks and how they will help your business grow.

Business model canvas: definition & structure

A business model canvas is a template that helps business teams to visualize, analyze, and adapt essential aspects of their business. The concept was coined and spread by Alexander Osterwalder, a Swiss entrepreneur and business theorist, and his graduate supervisor Yves Pigneur, a Belgian computer scientist. The term appeared thanks to the contribution of 470 entrepreneurs from 45 countries and was described in Osterwalder’s book Business Model Generation .

The basic idea of the business model canvas is to present a company’s business approach concisely. Thanks to simplicity, it helps teams to grasp the key elements of their business. The business model canvas includes nine areas, such as customer segments, value propositions, customer relationships, and others described in the article.

Now, let’s dive into the details of this model’s building blocks to learn how to create a business model canvas.

Each block of the business canvas model comprises certain information. You can fill them in and show them to your team. You can discuss each fundamental segment together and add the necessary research and data. Let’s see what information you can include in each part of the business model canvas. Below is a video that presents the concept of a business model canvas.

Customer segments

These include users and paying clients that purchase your product. How can you describe your different customer segments? Creating buyer personas to represent your target audience can be helpful.

A buyer persona is a concise but detailed description of a person who buys your product or services. The description shows the customer’s age, goals, interests and represents a specific customer segment. Also, it outlines problems the customer wants to solve and expectations about your product. By describing your buyer persona, you will better understand the pain points you must solve for your customers.

To create a buyer persona, perform research, surveys, and interviews with your prospects or customers. Thus, you will gain data on your customer segments’ expectations and needs.

Value propositions

It is a reason why customers prefer your company instead of others. The value you deliver helps customers satisfy their needs. So, a value proposition is a group of benefits you offer to a particular customer segment. Such benefits can be innovative or add exceptional features to existing products. For example, different value propositions can be as follows:

• Innovative product or service;
• Improved performance;
• Unique design;
• Easier accessibility;
• Convenience in using.

For example, Yelp helps people and local businesses find each other. The company’s value is giving access to reliable information about local businesses. Also, Yelp users can save money when discovering new places. So, the platform provides information that helps connect local businesses and people.

In a business model canvas, channels are the means to deliver value to your customers. Channels include how a company delivers and distributes products and services. Also, this point includes how an enterprise interacts with customers. Channels should be cost-efficient for your business and common for your customers. So they can notice and buy your product.

Typical channels for a SaaS B2B company include a website or an app.

For example, HubSpot, a customer relationship management system, uses various channels, such as social media, e-mail marketing, and blog. The company also reached its target audience through webinars and tutorials. Thus, their prospects better understood how the HubSpot CRM works.

Customer relationship

This point in the business model canvas outlines how a company will attract, retain and nurture customers. While channels show how to deliver your services, the customer relationship segment emphasizes how you support customers. So, you can use the following approaches to find and build customer relationships:

• Select the channels and platforms that your customers use the most.
• Choose the strategies to attract new customers and retain existing ones. For example, exceptional services and dedicated customer support with direct contact will help you to maintain customer relationships. Also, you can use tiered pricing or discounts for loyal customers.
• Define the ways to grow your audience. You can use content marketing to create blog posts, social media posts, and e-mails highlighting your benefits.

For example, Twitter deals with hundreds of millions of users, so the company needs to respond to their needs. Twitter uses customer service, social media, and e-mail support. These means help the company to maintain the necessary support and growth of their customer base.

Remember to define key channels for customer relationships through the touchpoints of the customer journey. From attracting to onboarding and support of customers, you will use different channels.

Revenue streams

This section represents the paid flows from your customers who pay for the value you provide. It shows how your business can generate revenue. Knowing this information, a business owner can choose a revenue stream for their product or service and a pricing mechanism. For example, you can choose between the following revenue models for a marketplace:

• Commission monetization model;
• Subscription model;
• Freemium model;
• Featured listings;
• Signup fees;
• Advertising fees.

Each revenue stream depends on the specifics of your product or service. You can choose from the above revenue models if you have an online business. Meanwhile, if you have an offline business, you must think about which monetization model you choose regarding the smallest details.

Key resources

Every company has strategic assets that enable its operation. Key resources help you support your value proposition and maintain a connection with customer segments. Companies typically choose resources from the below categories:

• Physical assets, including production facilities, machines, vehicles, and IT systems.
• Intellectual resources, including patents, copyrights, brands, partnerships, and customer databases.
• Human resources, including skilled employees in industries relying on knowledge.
• Financial resources, including cash in bank accounts, credit lines, and stock option pool.

The image below gives a summary of the key resources by category.

For example, Walmart would use and maintain its physical or virtual infrastructure as its core resources.

Another example is an activity booking marketplace that Codica created. The main asset, in this case, is the platform that enables parents to book activities for their children. The platform allows you to search for activities, book them, schedule with a calendar, and form itineraries for camps with prices. The key resources used in this case are technologies and qualified developers.

Key activities

These are your company's most important endeavors to keep business going successfully. Key activities depend on the niche of your business. For example, the main activities for a boat-selling website that we created include maintaining the platform and managing the interaction between sellers and buyers. Let’s see in more detail what the main key activity groups are as exemplified by this platform.

Production. This is how you deliver your product to end customers. If you create an online product, production includes discovery, design, development, testing, and maintenance of your product. For example, the boat marketplace chose our website redesign services for their platform to receive more conversions. The new design brought the company lead generation growth by 480%.

Problem-solving. These activities involve finding new approaches and addressing customers’ problems. For example, adding new features to your product helps solve your users’ pain points. In the case of the marketplace for boats, it is the decision to create a progressive web application (PWA) for the platform. This helped the company to cover mobile users in addition to desktop users.

Platform/network. These activities dominate companies functioning as platforms. Such enterprises create, run, and promote their platforms as a key resource. A platform that sells products or services requires regular maintenance and updates. For example, the Trade a Boat platform we mentioned above improved its search engine rankings and integrated service for placing ads. Check the video below to see how this boat sales platform works.

Key partnerships

Partnerships are crucial because you can win more with a partner than alone. With key partners, you can delegate specific tasks, mitigate business risks, and optimize your resources. For example, there can be such types of partnerships:

• Buyer-seller partnerships to supply resources or share infrastructure. For example, Alibaba partners with logistics companies to reduce shipping costs.
• Business competitors’ partnerships to mitigate risks and uncertainty. For example, Toyota and Suzuki created an alliance to promote their technologies in electrified transport.
• Partnerships to get access to customers, licenses, or knowledge base. For example, Spotify and Uber partnered to give their customers a better experience while they ride. Thus, both companies reached wider audiences.

To understand if a partner is a key partner, ask yourself: would the business model work without them? If your business model needs this partner to connect business processes, then it is a key partner.

Cost structure

Your costs depend on the expensive key resources and key activities. Some businesses try to minimize costs. At the same time, companies like luxury hotels can be focused on delivering particular value rather than cutting costs. So, your cost structure should be grounded on choosing between spending and value delivery priorities.

Cost structure can be defined based on key resources, key activities, and key partnerships. For example, Tinder, a dating app, spends costs for platform maintenance, salaries, and marketing. Also, the company’s cost structure includes spending on innovations, security, customer support, and product development.

Pros of a business model canvas

Many teams are engaged with current activities to run the business. To develop a successful business, they need a business strategy that provides them with details of where to move. Business model canvas is the right tool to keep them focused on day-to-day tasks with a clear strategy in mind.

But the question is, do you need a business canvas model in the first place? How can you discover if this template suits your business goals? We suggest its pros below.

Presents a concise and easy-to-follow business plan

Whether you are brainstorming business ideas or have a well-grounded venture, the concise strategy will help you plan the future. The business model canvas shows several blocks a team can fill and review at any time. Adjusting it is much easier than modifying a traditional business plan on 100 pages.

Helps to be focused on the action

A business model design focuses on operations and needs to outline actions for the team. For example, you plan to expand your audience or reach a certain profit during the year. Business model canvas is helpful to show you those goals and adjust internal processes if needed.

Enables scalability as the business evolves

Businesses do not remain the same but transform in the market climate. Companies must stay afloat among competitors. Also, they need to adapt to customers’ needs, industry innovations, and market conditions. Thus, you must see how your business plan and revenue goals align with consumers’ needs. A business model canvas is a handy instrument to bring up those aspects for your team. As your company runs, you can make changes and adapt your concise business plan to the current needs.

Puts customers at the forefront

Targeting the right audience is one of the keys for companies to survive. You must choose the right customers for your product to avoid wandering in the market and not reaching your customers. Business model canvas allows your team to understand who your customers are and why your product is valuable to them.

Attracts a team and investors

Any business needs a team with diverse skills and experiences to keep it going. Also, if you want to expand your business, you need to explicitly show your business's capabilities to investors. So, you need a framework that will engage both of these sides. Business model generation helps to outline the value that your company provides. Thus, stakeholders will get a clear view of your company’s perspectives.

Highlights unique value propositions

An outstanding service or feature you offer customers makes them come to you. The unique value proposition explains why customers choose your company among all others. If you look at the business model canvas structure, you will notice that this aspect is at your company's core. If you know your unique value propositions, you will understand other blocks of this template, and they will fall into place.

You may also like: How Much Does It Cost to Build an Online Marketplace in 2023

Business model canvas exemplified by Airbnb

You can find it helpful to see a real-life business model canvas example applied to a business model canvas. Below we illustrate the nine building blocks relevant to the business approach of Airbnb . This is a huge company with a great number of employees. Despite that, the business model canvas is simple and concise. It proves that the approach helps to focus on the main aspects of your business and have a bird’s eye view of business peculiarities. Let’s dive into it.

Customer segments: Airbnb customers can be divided into two separate groups: hosts and guests. Hosts differ by the type of property they offer, location, and activities. Guests differ by the type of trip they take and their interests in activities.

Value propositions: the primary reason why users choose this platform is to rent property simply and reliably. The value proposition for hosts includes income generation and risk minimization with insurance. Hosts can easily join the platform and manage their accounts. On the other hand, guests value this resource for the opportunity to stay in new places or while they are on a trip. Often, it is cheaper compared to hotel services.

Channels: the Airbnb platform operates through two channels: website and app. These channels help Airbnb connect the customer segments. Also, Airbnb reaches new customers through social media, digital advertising, and referral program. Many users simply trust the word of mouth and personal recommendations of the hosts. It is remarkable that Airbnb does not use travel agencies as its channels.

Customer relationship: the platform allows hosts to rent out the property on the conditions hosts choose and agree with guests. Also, the platform offers personalized property suggestions and customer support for both parties. The company maintains its reputation through the strong support of communication between customer segments and managing conflicts.

Revenue streams: Airbnb charges a commission from hosts of 3%-5% per deal and guests of up to 20%. More expensive reservations require less commission. As of 2022, Airbnb’s revenue made 8.4 billion , which is a record for the company.

Key resources: key assets for Airbnb are its platform and listed properties. The company makes it possible for guests and hosts to use them. Also, Airbnb’s resources include technologies and engineering staff to support the platform.

Key activities: these are website support and customer nurturing. For example, by developing the category of Superhost, Airbnb encourages hosts to provide better service. This, in return, will attract more guests to the platform. The company acquires new users through sales and marketing and ensures platform security. Also, Airbnb intermediates conflicts arising between hosts and guests.

Key partnerships: Airbnb’s key partners are hosts, including Superhosts. They list their property and attract guests. The company’s key activity is maintaining its website. So, its key partners are technology firms offering relevant software to list the property and manage bookings.

Airbnb’s partnerships also involve cooperation with charity organizations, such as the Red Cross, and support of animal protection initiatives. Besides, Airbnb partners with the Adventure Travel Trade Association to give hosts and guests tips on outdoor activities and adventures. Thus, Airbnb also improves customer relationships.

Cost structure: Airbnb supports its website, so the technologies and employees require spending. Also, the costs include giving away resources on marketing and customer support. Other Airbnb’s spendings cover customer acquisition, insurance, and administrative costs.

You may also like: An Online Marketplace Marketing Strategy That Works in 2023

Key steps in creating a business model canvas

Filling the business model canvas takes several steps. Moving with these steps, you will get insights into the nine elements. We listed the crucial steps in the image below.

Now, let’s see what these steps imply.

1. Gather materials and stakeholders

Developing a business model canvas involves many teams, such as marketing, sales, and project managers. Participation of the company’s top management, investors, and the business development department is also advisable. This collaboration will bring up the vision of the necessary business aspects. You and your teams will know where to move further by defining them.

Also, you will need research and data on your industry, target audience, and competitors. These valuable data sources will help you correctly fill the business model canvas.

2. Fill in the canvas template

Representatives of the necessary teams can together decide on the vital aspects of the business model canvas. You do not need to make a thorough plan at this stage. You add the essential data to form the direction for your company and teams. If required, you can adjust data later as your business evolves.

3. Test assumptions

The filled business model canvas can be changed at any time. This is the main benefit of this tool. By trying assumptions, your team can develop new ideas and discover that the filled data can be replaced. For example, you can choose other key partners with more competitive conditions. Or your revenue streams can be adjusted with alternative paid methods.

4. Support and maintain

A business model canvas is often seen as a planning method. But you can get more use of it. As your team gets new ideas, fill in your canvas to keep it up-to-date. In case of significant changes, you can rewrite it on the whole. An updated business model canvas is a powerful tool to realize how you will develop your business. You can also show it to stakeholders to obtain investments. In any case, it is a multifaceted and flexible asset.

Project discovery as the most crucial step in creating BMC

Creating a business canvas is crucial to define your business development strategy. But how can you start by outlining the vital points for this? At Codica, we rely on the product discovery process. This step in custom software development service is crucial to identify the project requirements. As a result, a client gets an estimation of project development terms and costs.

So, the main goals of the product discovery process are as follows:

• Identify the problems that the product solves;
• Discover the target audience and competitors;
• Define the project’s timeline and budget;
• Elaborate user flow;
• Create prototypes;
• Prepare a feature list, including killer features.

Since you better understand the needs of your target audience and the project’s potential, you minimize risks when launching your product. So you can deliver better results to your prospects.

Project discovery parties

Product discovery sessions serve as an umbrella for parties who discuss the project requirements. The representatives taking part in this process include the following:

• Client and their representatives who describe the purpose and requirements of the solution;
• Business analyst/product manager who collects, analyzes, and structures the data from the client;
• UI/UX designer who creates prototypes based on the information from the client and their research for custom app design ;
• Lead of software engineers who suggests optimized team composition and tech stack based on research and requirements.

All of the parties contribute to creating a thorough plan for solution development. Below you can see in more detail how the sides of the product discovery process are involved in the discussion.

After the series of discussions, you will get documents with your solution's timeline, costs, and final look. These documents include the following:

• The list of primary features;
• Clickable prototypes;
• The product architecture and tech stack;
• Time and cost estimates;
• Project specification;
• Advice on team composition.

Just like in a business model canvas, these documents can be changed if you or the team see the need for this.

For example, relying on this method, we created a multi-vendor marketplace platform for B2C and C2C segments. The client wanted to create a platform where people can shop online in one place. This would save them hours and even days compared to searching for products online in different stores. Also, the aim was to make the platform engaging for customers where they could share their experience with the platform. Despite the platform's versatility, its design should be intuitive so that users can navigate through the product categories and filters.

During the detailed discovery sessions, we helped our client clarify how to implement features for displaying product categories and subcategories. We suggested how to divide the platform into sections with a simple switch in the menu.

As a result of development, the platform helps users find products in many categories. We optimized the platform for better search engine rankings. Our team elaborated on the Local and Connect sections. They make the platform more engaging as users can search for local stores and share their experiences with the platform.

Also, we created a minimalist design with convenient functions that allows you to find items quickly. Check the video below to grasp how the platform works.

Viable questions in each building block

As you fill your business model canvas template, addressing the right questions is crucial to making correct assumptions. So, we prepared a list of possible questions you can put in each of the nine blocks of a business model canvas.

These questions break each segment into smaller chunks. You can manage each broad category with these elements and get relevant answers. Feel free to adapt them to your business needs. Also, you can select some questions from the given if that suits you better.

• Who are your potential customers?
• What are your customers’ pain points?
• What sorts of products do you provide to particular groups of customers?
• What is the value you deliver to customers?
• Which customers’ problems do you solve with your products?
• Which channels are beneficial to deliver value to customers? Are you using them now?
• Are your channels cost-efficient? What channels work best?
• Do your channels suit well customers’ routine actions?

Customer relationships

• What relationships do you hold with each customer segment?
• Are those relationships costly?
• How do those relationships connect with the rest of your business model canvas?
• What are the values your customers are ready to pay for?
• What are the best ways for your customers to pay for your value?
• Do revenue streams contribute to your total?
• How do you involve new financing sources, if needed?
• What key resources do you need to run your business?
• How do they help to improve your relationships with customers?
• How do they help make channels and revenue streams advantageous?
• What are your key activities to improve customer relationships, channels, and revenue streams?
• How do you bring up the value propositions to customers with your activities?
• Who are your main partners?
• What are the resources that you gain in your partnerships?
• What are the key activities that your key partners carry out for you?

Cost structure:

• What are the expenditures necessary for your business model?
• Which activities and resources are the most expensive?

Related reading: 10 Best Marketplace Monetization Strategies to Succeed

Life after creating your business model canvas

Once you’ve created your business model canvas, you can use it in your everyday business routines. This is its purpose, to guide you in your business journey. So, how can you use your business model canvas for the best of your company?

Tracking your progress. Use your business model canvas as a statistics board reflecting your progress in particular sections. Highlight those areas that can perform better and those where you succeed.

Discussions with teams. The business model canvas is helpful for discussing it with your teams. Everyone can see the bright and dark spots and bring solutions or improvements.

A better understanding of customers. Your customers are the force that keeps your business running. When they feel your care, they are more loyal to your brand. So, you can use your business model canvas to get insights on how to build strong relationships with them.

Hiring new talent and showing it to investors. When engaging new talent, you can show them the business model canvas so they familiarize themselves with the company’s state. Also, you can use it to support your business ideas when talking to investors about attracting capital.

You may also like: MVP Development Cost: 5 Main Aspects for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Software for creating a business model canvas

A traditional way of creating a business model canvas is to take a massive sheet of paper or a whiteboard and fill in the nine areas. But digital solutions can also help you visualize and share the template between teams. Below are several examples of prominent business model canvas software.

Strategyzer. This solution comes from the company co-founded by Alex Osterwalder. It is versatile and convenient. The tool allows you to create a business model canvas and value proposition canvas, providing real-time teamwork. An estimator tool analyzes revenue flow and calculates the business idea's viability. The tool also estimates the potential of startups with their price. The solution has convenient color marking and improved encryption. The subscription costs $300 annually, with unlimited canvases and unlimited users.

Canvanizer. The tool has been there for a while, providing an excellent experience in building business model canvases. The website also offers templates for other types of canvases, such as lean canvases and service design canvases. The team can view and share the canvas and convert it into sharable formats, such as .pdf, .png, and more.

Visual Paradigm. It is a versatile set of tools for development teams' collaboration and creating diagrams. Among other visualization diagrams, the app features various templates of business model canvases. You can choose cards with different colors to mark each of the nine areas.

Miro. Miro is a whiteboard for teamwork, creating content, brainstorming, strategic planning, and more. In addition, it provides various types of templates for collaboration and business model canvas. The software allows you to select and share a template with a team. After that, anyone can contribute to developing the template by bringing their ideas. The tool also offers the option of creating canvases from scratch. The video below presents how you can create and manipulate templates in Miro.

CNVS. This software keeps the features simple and presents them with a minimalistic design. The basic set of features is free. You must pay for advanced features, such as unlimited workspaces, private canvases, and sharing with others. The software offers lean canvas, business canvas, and feature canvas templates. The basic set of templates and team collaboration tools are given for free. Yet, if you need unlimited workspaces or support, you must pay an additional monthly fee of €7.99.

Wrapping up

As Alexander Osterwalder put it, business models have a short lifespan in an ever-changing environment. The business model canvas serves best regarding that possibility. With the evolution of your business, you can adjust the nine areas so your business performs better. This approach is ideal for modern, ever-changing market conditions where you must react quickly.

Remember also that those areas are intertwined and work as a whole. This means that changes in one sector will result in transformations in others.

However you choose to build your business model canvas, it will serve the best of your company. Let your teams share their insights and improve the business model template to keep it updated.

If you need help discovering the key points of your business project’s potential, feel free to contact us . Also, check our portfolio to see more projects that started from defining the key business points. Our experts will eagerly help you with estimating your project’s business opportunities and development.

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HDD & More from Me

The 20 Minute Business Plan: Business Model Canvas Made Easy

Table of Contents

What’s the Business Model Canvas?

How do you get started, why use the business model canvas, when should you use the business model canvas, how do you use the canvas to facilitate alignment and focus, step 1 (of 10): customer segments, step 2 (of 10): value propositions, step 3 (of 10): channels, step 4 (of 10): customer relationships, step 5 (of 10): revenue streams, step 6 (of 10): key activities, step 7 (of 10): key resources, step 8 (of 10): key partnerships, step 9 (of 10): cost structure, step 10 (of 10): applications, analysis & next steps, example a: enable quiz (startup), example b: hvac in a hurry (enterprise), using the google doc’s/powerpoint template.

If you’re already familiar, you can skip to the next section, ‘ How do I get started ?’.

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a ‘back of the napkin’ sketch without  the fuzziness (and coffee rings).

Together these elements provide a pretty coherent view of a business’ key drivers–

• Customer Segments : Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?
• Value Propositions : What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, use?
• Channels : How are these propositions promoted, sold and delivered? Why? Is it working?
• Customer Relationships : How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?
• Revenue Streams : How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
• Key Activities : What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?
• Key Resources : What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?
• Key Partnerships : What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?
• Cost Structure : What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?

The Canvas is popular with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs for business model innovation. Fundamentally, it delivers three things:

• Focus : Stripping away the 40+ pages of ‘stuff’ in a traditional business plan, I’ve seen users of the BMC improve their clarify and focus on what’s driving the business (and what’s non-core and getting in the way).
• Flexibility : It’s easier to facilitate alignment by tweaking the model and trying things (from a planning perspective) with something that’s sitting on a single page.
• Transparency: Your team will have a much easier time understanding your business model and be much more likely to buy in to your vision when it’s laid out on a single page.

The first time you engage with the canvas, I recommend printing it out or projecting it on a whiteboard and going to town (see below for a PDF). However, if you’re ready to put together something a little more formal (for distribution, presentation, etc.) here’s a Google App’s template you can copy or download as MSFT PowerPoint:

*Omnigraffle a popular diagramming program for the Mac. It has a fairly easy to use layering environment which you may find handy as you want to tinker with and produce different views of the canvas. You can try Omnigraffle for free (the basic paid version is $99).

The short answer is this: because it’s simple yet focused and that means more of your audience is likely to pay attention to it. Also, it’s highly amenable to change on the margins.

This matters a lot- more than most people think. A company that wants to innovate has to be ready to be wrong . A good VC in early stage investments succeeds with a prevalence of something like a 1/10. If you think you’re doing a lot better than that with substantial new innovation investments (a startup or a new line of business inside an enterprise) you’re probably throwing good money after bad.

Transparency, simplicity, and focus are great facilitators of the ‘creative destruction’ a good innovation program needs, and the Canvas does a nice job of delivering that across lines of business. For a large corporation with multiple lines of business at various levels of maturity, I actually prefer the Corporate Innovation Canvas as a starting point. However, from there, the Business Model Canvas does an excellent job of bringing clarity to the questions of how, for example, a given line of business creates focus and then implements it in an innovation-friendly way with, for example, ‘objectives and key results’ OKR’s . It’s a central element in the ‘innovation stack’ where an enterprise is able to go from priority innovation areas (with the Corporate Innovation Canvas) to testable business model designs (with the Business Model Canvas) to product charters (with an agile team charter ) to individual learning pathways to cultivate the talent they need to execute.

Even more important than the top down cascading of objectives with testable results and KPI’s is the improvement in the feedback in outcomes that helps the overall innovation program learn and adapt quickly. With layer appropriate innovation metrics, it’s much easier for the achievements of individuals to cohere (or not) to the job of teams and in turn from there to lines of business back up to corporate objectives. This helps both help the company’s talent understand where they might benefit from more practice and learning as well as what constitutes success in their individual roles and collaborations.

Anytime you want to have a focused discussion about what matters to a given line of business, the Business Model Canvas is a good place to start. The Canvas has received a lot of attention as a tool for startup entrepreneurship. While this may be one of the ‘sexier’ and more ostensibly simple applications of the Canvas, I actually think it’s one of the least compelling. For a startup, the only thing that matters is product/market fit, which the Canvas represents as a set of relationships between Customer Segments and Value Propositions. The Canvas doesn’t do a bad job of describing this, but it’s kind of overkill- the whole left side of the Canvas which describes the delivery infrastructure is mostly irrelevant for startups that are still finding product market fit, since all that’s provisional about where (and whether) they arrive at product/market fit.

Where the Canvas really shines is describing an existing line of business to answer questions like: a) What does product/market fit mean for this business? b) Where have we focused our company building and is it still relevant to ‘a’? c) What are our key revenue, cost, and profit drivers, and how do we improve those?

Now we’re taking! Whether you’re an ‘intrapreneur’ exploring a new extension to the business or a ‘digital transformation’/IT consultant trying to facilitate a discussion about what ‘strategic IT’ means and how you’ll know if you achieve it, the Canvas is a quick and productive place to anchor such a discussion.

First and foremost, I’d try it out for yourself. Fill out the elements the business you’re working on and then ask yourself ‘Does this make sense?’ ‘What are the most important linkages and components of the model?’

From there, you may just want to use the Canvas you sketch to facilitate alignment on some other topic. However, if you’re working with a team on a new venture or with a client on a new project, you may then want to take it from the top and facilitate a workshop where you facilitate a fresh take on the Canvas, levering your experience thinking through it once. The link below will take you to a related curriculum item that has workshop slides, prep. items, and agenda.

LINK TO WORKSHOP PAGE

Otherwise, the next sections (10 steps) offer a tutorial on how to think through a business model design with the Canvas. The closing sections offer notes on how to use the Google Doc’s/PowerPoint and Omnigraffle templates.

Output : a list of Personas, organized by Customer Segment if you have more than one segment. I recommend trying to prioritize them- Who would you pitch first if you could only pitch one? Who next? And so forth…

Notes : If you’re spending a lot of time on this first item, that’s OK (and it’s probably good). The Canvas is a tool, not a strategy and not all the nine blocks are equal. The pairing of Customer Segments and Value Propositions is really the ‘independent variable’ that should be driving everything else in your business model. When I use the Canvas in my Venture Design classes, we usually spend all of the first session (plus time for field research) on Customer Segments and Value Propositions.

For example, at Leonid, an enterprise software company I founded, we thought our largest customers worked with us because of the cost savings we offered and our knowledge about best practices. It turned out that was mostly wrong- reducing their time and risk to get new services to market was the most important. It’s not that the other things weren’t important, but they weren’t the top Value Proposition. That made a difference on how we sold the product and how we focused on operationalizing it for customers.

This mapping says ‘We have 3 personas. Persona 1 cares about VP 1 & 2. Persona 2 cares about VP 2; Persona 3 cares about VP3. (One segment only so segments not noted)’.

Output : a prioritized list of Value Propositions and linkages from each Personas to the VP’s relevant to them.

Notes: Again, this pairing is the key driver for most business models and if you want more on how to describe and discovery what to put in this part of the canvas, I recommend this: Tutorial- Personas .

Maybe you feel like you’re in good shape on understanding the customer’s world but you don’t have any validation on whether the Value Propositions are clicking because this is a new venture? If you’re not sure, that’s OK and good for you for acknowledging the uncertainty! It’s the responsible thing to do. The key is to write down those assumptions, prioritize them, and figure out the quickest and cheapest way to prove or disprove them. That’s what Lean/Startup is about and there are resources here to help you with that, if you’d like- Tutorial: Lean Startup .

Channels includes entities you use to communicate your proposition to your segments, as well as entities through which you sell product and later service customers (see AIDAOR journey below). For example, if you sell bulbs for light houses and there’s a website all light house attendants purchase equipment, that site is a sales Channel. If you use Google AdWords, that’s a Channel, too (for getting attention). If you use a third party company to service the bulbs when they break, that’s also a Channel.

Output : a list of important Channels, linked to Personas or Segments if they differ substantially. Make notes on what steps are relevant for each- promotion, sales, service, etc. See Note this section for more structure on this.

Notes: Channels and the next item, Customer Relationships, define your interface with the Customer. It’s important to think all the way through the customer ‘journey’ in specific terms. For most businesses, the way they get a customer’s attention is different than the way they onboard them or support them over the long term. For this, I recommend the AIDA.OR framework (attention-interest-desire-action-onboarding-retention) and storyboarding your way through it. Here’s a post explaining all that- Storyboarding AIDA(OR) . If you don’t want to do the storyboards, I recommend at least making notes about your customer journey through the AIDA(OR) steps.

Another consideration is whether your channels will give you enough visibility into the user, including, for example, a way to follow up with users. Not sure? Document your assumptions Lean Startup style and figure out how you’ll quickly prove or disprove them.

Output : a description of Customer Relationships, with notes if they differ across Customers (between Segments or among Personas within a Segment) or across the customer journey.

Notes: If you’re a startup, be sure to document and review critical assumptions here. Also, the focal items are in a kind of specific order- you should validate your Segments and their relationship to the Propositions above all else. If this means you provide personal support in the early days (a ‘concierge test’ in Lean Startup terms) to do discovery and validation of Segments and Propositions, that’s OK. You can subsequently test the Customer Relationship models. (Here’s a post on using consulting as a concierge vehicle in B2B if you want more detail: Consulting as B2B Concierge Vehicle ).

Notes : If you have a startup or are re-engineering the business, this is a time to look at where you’re driving revenue and whether it aligns with the rest of your focal points. Are you charging on value? Perceived value? They say everyone loves their banker; hates their lawyer. Why is that? Is there an actionable analog in your business?

For a product-driven business, this probably includes ongoing learning about users and new techniques to build better product. If you’re focused on doing a bunch of things for a particular set of customers (ex: comprehensive IT for law offices), this probably includes maintaining superior expertise on the segment(s) and creating or acquiring products and services that are a good fit, whatever that entails. For an infrastructure business (ex: electric utility), it probably includes keeping the infrastructure working reliably and making it more efficient.

Outputs : a list of Key Activities linked to your business’ Value Propositions.

Notes : One question this analysis should raise for you is whether or not certain Activities and Resources are actually core, actually focal to your business, something you’ll want to think through .

Outputs : a list of Key Resources linked to your business’ Key Activities.

Notes : Product-driven businesses have a differentiated product of some sort. Rovio, the company that makes the popular app Angry Birds, is such a company. Key Resources in product-driven businesses are typically key talent in critical areas of expertise and accumulated intellectual property related to their offering.

Scope-driven businesses create some synergy around a particular Customer Segment. For example, if you started a business that would take care of all the IT needs for law firms, that would be a scope-driven business. These businesses typically have key knowledge about their segment, a repeatable set of processes, and sometimes infrastructure, like service centers.

Infrastructure-driven businesses achieve economies of scale in a specific, highly repeatable area. Telecommunications is traditionally an infrastructure business. Retailers focused on retail, like Walgreens or Costco, are primarily infrastructure-driven businesses. The Key Resources for this type of business are, you guessed it, various types of physical or virtual infrastructure.

Let’s take a single product category: diapers. The Honest Company or another innovating around compostable or otherwise more environmentally friendly diapers would be a product-driven take on the category. Procter & Gamble which has a cradle-to-grave strategy for providing consumer products is a scope-based take; so are various baby-focused retailers. Kimberly-Clark (wood pulp) or DuPont (chemicals and polymers) are both infrastructure-based takes: diapers is just another way to sell something they produce at scale with relatively little differentiation.

If there are major cost components that don’t map to a Key Activity, I’d take a closer look at those costs.

Output : a list of Cost Structure elements with notes on their relationship to Key Activities.

Congratulations- you have a working canvas! The section below offers a few analytical ideas and suggestions for next steps.

Core Applications The most core and obvious applications of the Canvas are to ask: – Does it make sense? – Could it be better? – Does the rest of my team understand and agree? Have additional ideas? – (rinse and repeat at least quarterly)

Competitiveness The canvas does a good job of helping you figure out your business, which is a good place to start. You also want to look at the competitive environment and think about if and how you have/maintain a long term competitive advantage.

For this, I like Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework ( Wikipedia Page ; see also Chapter 2 of ‘ Starting a Tech Business ‘). Try walking through the Five Forces for your company and then bounce back to your canvas. How does it all hang together?

Next Steps Every business is a work in progress (sorry, I try to avoid saying things like that but it seemed to fit here). As you go through the canvas, you may encounter areas that give you trouble. The table below summarizes a few of the most common that I see in my work as a mentor and coach:

Want to make innovation an everyday thing?

What is Enable Quiz?

Enable Quiz is a (fictional) startup that’s building a lightweight quizzing application for companies that hire a lot of technical talent (engineers). Their take is:

For hiring managers who need to evaluate technical talent, Enable Quiz is a talent assessment system that allows for quick and easy assessment of topical understanding in key engineering topics. Unlike formal certifications or ad hoc questions, our product allows for lightweight but consistent assessments of technical talent.

Why and how would Enable Quiz use the Business Model Canvas?

They have a small team, but arriving at a clear, shared understanding of what they’re after is still important. That said, it’s important that the way they talk about this is both highly visible and amenable to change. Given that, the Canvas is a good fit.

The Business Model Canvas at Enable Quiz

This page shows Enable Quiz’s current working view of product/market fit:

What is HVAC in a Hurry?

HVAC in a Hurry is a mid-sized enterprise that services commercial HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. Their take on the business is:

For facilities managers & business owners who need their heating & cooling systems managed and repaired, HVAC in a Hurry is a full service provider that allows for easy and responsible management of a business’ HVAC systems. Unlike smaller firms, our commitment to best practices and training allows customers to worry less and realize superior total cost of ownership for their HVAC systems.

Why and how would HVAC in a Hurry use the Business Model Canvas?

HVAC in a Hurry has a working version of product/market fit. However, their industry is competitive and successful firms increasingly use technology to improve customer experience (CX) and reduce cost (overhead) in their operations. HVAC in a Hurry has a small ‘digital transformation’ team that’s working on digital applications to improve the company’s performance. This team decided to use the Canvas to ‘manage upwards’ in order to facilitate better discussions about where they should focus, how that aligns with the business as a whole, and what success definition makes sense for them.

The Business Model Canvas at HVAC in a Hurry

Here’s their current view of product/market fit:

If you’re not familiar with it, Google Doc’s is a web-based office suite, similar to MS Office. If you have a gmail account, you can access it (no guarantees- that was the case last time I checked).

First, you’ll want to link to the template file: BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS TEMPLATE IN GOOGLE DOC’S .

Once you’re accessed the file, you can make make it your own by going to the File menu and either ‘Make a copy…’, creating a copy in your own Google App’s domain or you can use the ‘Download as…’ option to download it as PowerPoint (and a few other formats).

What’s your experience with the Canvas? How have you used it? What worked? What didn’t? Please consider posting a comment!

Copyright © 2022 Alex Cowan · All rights reserved.

Business Model Canvas Explained: Definition, Pros, Cons, and Building Blocks

So, here's the thing. We all know that we need structure to work effectively, but where do we start with so many options available? One tool worth considering is the Business Model Canvas (BMC) . Used effectively, it can give solid structure to your planning. 

In this article we will examine how the model works and a few ways to use it effectively. Then, we will describe its best practices and some recommendations on getting started. Finally, we will explore possible alternatives. 

Ready to get to know all about the BMC? Let's begin.

The Business Model Canvas, explained

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool that helps businesses visualize and analyze their business models. It consists of 9 fundamental building blocks that describe the core aspects of a company's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances (more on that later, we promise). 

By using it, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of their overall business model , identify areas for improvement, and develop new strategies for growth. One of the key benefits of the BMC format is that it's very visual. Used adequately, it allows organizations to create a display of their business model in alignment with strategic business objectives and the overall value proposition.

The nine BMC building blocks were initially presented in 2005 by Alexander Osterwalder. They were based on his Ph.D. work on business model ontology, supervised by Yves Pigneur. Since its release, the authors have developed other related tools, such as the Culture Map and the Value Proposition Canvas, which have helped the BMC tool to evolve and added value to it.

Business Model Canvas examples

Some examples of the BMC include:

• Strategy planning
• Business planning
• Business modeling

Lean Canvas vs. Business Model Canvas

Both the Lean and Business Model Canvas enable you to capture your entire model on a single page. The primary difference between them is that the Lean Canvas focuses mainly on solving a particular problem. The Business Canvas Model, on the other hand, is more sales orientated and usually focuses on selling products or services. 

Advantages and disadvantages of the Business Model Canvas

Even though the BMC offers a series of features in order to effectively visualize and analyze your organization's business model, there are also some possible drawbacks to be aware of – and avoid. 

To start on the right note, the benefits of the Business Model Canvas include:

• A clear and comprehensive business model overview in a single visual format. This makes it easier to understand, articulate, and communicate.
• Strong collaboration and breaking down silos. Using the BMC approach incentives people to work as one team, as it involves all stakeholders, and enables them to actively participate in developing, improving, and refining the business model.
• Colleagues constantly progressing with feedback (to borrow from an ITIL principle). The BMC approach allows for a fast and efficient testing of different business model configurations, speeding up the innovation process and reducing the time to market.
• A structured and systematic approach to analyzing and designing business models, which helps identify areas for improvement and innovation.
• A flexible approach that enables innovation instead of limiting it. The framework can be adapted to different types of businesses, industries, and customer groups.

However, if you choose to work with this management tool, you need to consider its potential disadvantages :

• Using the BMC approach effectively can be challenging without prior knowledge of business modeling concepts and terminology. You will need to put the work in and do some pre-reading to get the most out of it.
• Because it's so visual, it may oversimplify the complexity of a business model, making it more challenging to articulate some of the aspects of the organization's operations and performance. This makes it unsuitable for highly-specialized or complex businesses.
• Because it's a framework rather than a prescriptive standard that must be strictly adhered to, it doesn't provide detailed guidance on implementing or executing the business model, which can lead to difficulties in translating the canvas into action.
• It can rely on assumptions and hypotheses, which may not always be accurate or relevant for real-world situations.

The 9 building blocks of a Business Canvas Model

The Business Model Canvas is organized in nine  building blocks that represent a business model's key elements. These building blocks are:

• Value Proposition - The unique value the business provides to its customers and how it differentiates itself from competitors. In other words, it’s what sets your business apart, what makes it special, and what value it brings.
• Customer Segments - The different groups of customers the business targets with its products or services. This building block looks at your most important customers.
• Customer Relationships - The business' relationships with its customers and how it interacts with them. This is a fundamental building block as not only does it help you build and maintain a relationship, it also enables you to map out the cost and deliverables needed to continue to improve that relationship.
• Channels - T he different channels that the business uses to reach and interact with customers, including physical and digital channels.
• Key Partnerships - The relationships and collaborations that the business has with its suppliers, vendors, and other external partners.
• Key Activities - The key activities that the business must perform to deliver its value proposition and operate successfully. This building block helps you to define your most mission-critical actions and prioritize them accordingly.
• Key Resources - The key resources the business requires to operate, including human resources, physical assets, and intellectual property. This can also include relationships, distribution channels, and virtual assets.
• Revenue Streams - The different sources of revenue that the business generates from its customers, including one-time sales, recurring revenue, and other revenue streams. This building block also helps determine how each stream contributes to the business profit.
• Cost Structure - The various costs that the business incurs to operate, including fixed costs, variable costs, and other expenses. It also helps you identify your most expensive assets and activities to make effective financial plans for the future.

How to build a Business Model Canvas in 14 steps

The Business Model Canvas is flexible – no one size fits all. But for our money, there are 14 steps to effectively build it.

Step 1: Define the purpose 

The first step is to define the purpose of the Business Model Canvas. Where are you now, and where do you want to be? What do you hope to achieve? Who is the target audience? Have you double-checked to ensure what you want to achieve is in line with the strategic objectives of the rest of the business?

Step 2: Identify the nine building blocks

Identify the nine building blocks of the BMC, review each in relation to your business, and understand their purpose.

Step 3: Define the Value Proposition

What will add value? Start by defining the unique value that your business offers to customers. This will be the foundation of your canvas.

Step 4: Identify your Customer Segments 

Define the different groups of customers your business targets and their specific needs and preferences so you can focus and direct your efforts accordingly.

Step 5: Define Customer Relationships 

Identify your business' relationships with its customers and how it interacts with them. You can also use this step to identify your most important relationships so you can focus more effort on maintaining and improving them.

Step 6: Determine the Channels

Identify your business's channels to reach and interact with its customers, including physical and digital channels. From a service desk perspective, this could be offering a tier 0 channel with self-service or AI-enabled support capabilities before providing tier 1 and level 2 channels which offer a more people-centric user experience .

Step 7: Define Key Partnerships

Identify your business's relationships and collaborations with its suppliers, vendors, and other external partners. Remember, it's not just relationships with customers and stakeholders that matter, your suppliers are part of your team, so manage those relationships appropriately.

Step 8: Identify Key Activities

Define the key activities that your business must perform to deliver its value proposition and operate successfully.

Step 9: Determine Key Resources

Identify the key resources that your business requires to operate, including people, knowledge and wisdom, financial assets, and IT assets.

Step 10: Determine Revenue Streams 

Identify the different sources of revenue that your business generates from its customers. If you have a finance team,  work with them to identify current revenue streams and plan for future ones.

Step 11: Determine Cost Structure

Work with your finance team to identify the various costs that your business incurs to operate, CAPEX, and OPEX costs. 

Step 12: Build the Canvas

Once you have defined all of the building blocks, you can start creating the canvas to visualize what you are planning to accomplish.

Step 13: Review and refine

The BMC isn't a one-and-done approach. Review your model and seek feedback from your stakeholders to correct the course when needed.

Step 14: Keep going! 

In the words of Walt Disney, "Keep moving forward." Build and refine your model over time to reflect current and future activities more accurately. 

How to complete a Business Model Canvas

No one likes a blank page, do they? The difficult part is always getting started, but I promise, if you follow these steps, you'll be off to a great start: 

• Start with the Value Proposition - Before you do anything else, fill in the Value Proposition block in the center of the canvas. This should describe the unique value that your business provides to customers and how it differentiates itself from competitors. Focus on getting this point right because value is everything in terms of the BMC.
• Add in your enablers - This will include your key activities, customer segments, relationships (both customer and supplier relationships) assets, key activities, and channels.
• Add in your financials - Put in your revenue dreams and your cost models to make your BCM more transparent and ensure there are no hidden costs.
• Progress iteratively with feedback - Once you have filled in all the building blocks, review your canvas, iterate, and redefine  as needed. Seek input from stakeholders and make adjustments.
• Give the gift of clarity - Remember, this is a visual model, so don't get too stuck on the details or use too much jargon. The effect you're looking for is clear, concise, and visual.
• Relationships matter - We are talking about the relationship between each building block, so ensure they are correctly represented in your diagram.

Six alternatives to the Business Model Canvas

While the Business Model Canvas is a popular tool for developing and communicating a business model, other options are available too. Some alternatives include:

• Lean Canvas - This tool is similar to the BMC but focuses on startups and small businesses. It includes fewer blocks and focuses on validating hypotheses and testing assumptions quickly.
• SWOT Analysis - This tool helps to identify a business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This can be a valuable tool for assessing the current state of a company and identifying areas for improvement.
• Business Model Innovation - This involves developing a new business model that is different from the traditional one used in the industry. It can be done through creative thinking, exploring new technologies, or adopting a new approach to customer relationships.
• Blue Ocean Strategy - This framework helps businesses to create new markets and uncontested market space. It involves identifying and focusing on areas of innovation that competitors have not explored.
• Value Proposition Canvas - This tool helps businesses to define and communicate their value proposition to customers. It focuses on the customer's needs, desired outcomes, challenges, and how the company can better meet those needs than its competitors.

Key takeaways

The Business Model Canvas or BMC is a strategic management tool that helps businesses visualize, design, and analyze their business models. Some of its common applications include business planning, value propositions, and modeling.

If you want to give it a shot to plan your organization’s strategy, make sure that you have your BCM template ready with the nine key elements that need to be completed. And don’t forget to follow through our six tips on how to get started!

  Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make a good business model canvas .

To make a good Business Model Canvas, clearly define the unique value proposition of your business and ensure that the key building blocks of the canvas (such as channels, revenue streams, and cost structure) are aligned with the overall strategic objectives of the business. Review and improve the canvas as needed to continue improving and aligning with business needs.

What are the four types of business models? 

The four types of business models are product, service, platform, and sub-subscription-based.

What are the three sections of the Business Model Canvas? 

Value Propositions, enablers, and financial planning.

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Do you have a great idea for a business or a new product/service but don’t know how to get started?

The business model canvas is an easy-to-use tool that can help you understand your idea and make it more concrete. It’s also a great way to talk about your idea with others, so they can give feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

The Business Model Canvas will help you identify the key components of your venture and map out the relationships between them. You’ll be able to see all aspects of your venture in one diagram—from customer segments, value propositions, channels, revenue streams, costs structures to team roles and organizational structure.

While it’s often used by startups, larger businesses, and more “refined” companies, this honestly is a great tool, no matter how large or small your company is.

I’ve created a free toolkit that includes a business model canvas template and more helpful tools. You can grab it below:

In June I was accepted into a business coaching/learning program called “Power Up Your Business.” It’s sponsored by a local community college and essentially they teach you the framework for a powerful business, along with offering business coaching, working on tactical business plans, and more.

I had heard of this before, and even tried to use it for a “business” I was going to run about 4 years ago ( which clearly didn’t go anywhere).

When I previously used the canvas, I was really confused on everything and I kind of just put it to the side and never thought about it again. So when I heard the topic for the day I wasn’t wildly impressed. I was thinking it wasn’t worthwhile, and was just another “exercise” some trainers and professors make you do.

But this class was one of those times where you go from “yeah, I already know this” to “holy crap, I have a LOT of work to do.”

I felt energized and excited, and THAT NIGHT I went home and was thinking about this before bed. This led to an episode of entrepreneurial insomnia , and I woke up at 3am with my mind RACING about all kinds of ideas for my business.

I actually started a new note on my phone, wrote down everything that came to mind, and by the time I got done it was quite long!

I got out of bed around 5am and filled out an entirely new business canvas for a pivot I was going to be making in my business.

This exercise gave me so much clarity on how I’m going to be moving forward, so I had to share it with you.

What is the Business Model Canvas?

The Business Model Canvas was created by Alexander Osterwalder, and is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool used to capture the essence of your new venture. It will help you determine if you are on the right path, saving valuable time, energy, and resources in the process. This tool helps entrepreneurs build businesses that can evolve over time with ease.

In short, the Business Model Canvas is a way to quickly put together a business plan without the need for writing a traditional 80-page business plan detailing every aspect of a business you have yet to create.

It’s a method that allows you to quickly iterate and make changes to the plan without having to start a new business plan.

A lot of you might be thinking:

“But Chenell, I just run a [blog, website, ecommerce store, freelancing business, etc] why would I need something like this?”

I’d say if you’re asking the question of whether or not you need to complete this exercise, that you probably need it more than you think.

Having a plan and strategy for going into business and knowing who your customers are and how you can help them is CRITICAL to success.

This tool is used as a template for lean startups and as a strategic management tool.

The 9 Blocks of the Business Model Canvas

If you’ve been following along, I put together a post about each of these throughout the last week or so.

If you look at the canvas as a whole,  the right half of the canvas is essentially the “front of the house” stuff, like what kind of customers you’re helping, how you keep them as customers, etc.

The left half of the canvas is like the “back of the house” where you’re focusing on the activities you are doing in the business, what resources you need, who your key partners are, etc.

Both sides meet in the middle at your value propositions,  which are essentially what kind of offering you have for your clients and customers.

There are nine blocks that make up a business model canvas.

1. Customer Segments

Who are your customers? Who are you creating value for?

This section is about figuring out who you are going to provide value for. In this block of the canvas, fill in characteristics of the people you are targeting.

I know you’ve heard all about determining your niche, and choosing your avatar for your business. This is building upon those exercises.

A customer segment is a group of people (or businesses if you’re a B2B company) that you are looking to sell your products and services to.  It’s essentially the common characteristics your target market has that will allow you to find and market to them more easily.

2. Customer Relationships

How do you get, keep and grow/upsell customers? How do you interact with your current and potential customers? What type of relationship do they expect from working with you?

Customer Acquisition

How are you getting new customers ? This could be anything from email marketing to search engine optimization (SEO) to going out and doing direct sales.

Think about the methods you are going to use to attract the right people to your business. Where are your customers currently hanging out? Are they on Facebook, or are they lingering in an industry-specific forum asking questions?

Customer Retention

Acquiring customers can be challenging, and it’s always easier to sell again to a current customer than to get a new one. How are you going to keep your customers around?

Are you going to mail out postcards for special occasions, have monthly check-in calls, or just surprise and delight them with free stuff? Maybe you’re promoting your customers on social media, whatever it is, take note of it.

Grab the Business Model Canvas Toolkit to more easily follow along. This includes a PDF template of the canvas, along with a step-by-step guide to completing your own canvas:

3. Channels

How do you deliver your product or service? Is it B2B, B2C? How are you reaching your customers and prospects?

There are a few phases of channels to keep in mind:

• Awareness  – these channels could be search engines, social media, etc.
• Evaluation  – Your website, review sites, and again social and search
• Purchase  – Merchant accounts, invoicing platforms, your website
• Delivering Value Proposition – postage or mail, email providers, systems you use to deliver the product or service. Are you going to be delivering value with an online course , consulting and coaching, or do you have a “done for you” kind of offering?
• Post-Purchase Support – your email newsletter, chat platforms, content marketing, and customer service reps.

4. Value Proposition & the Value Proposition Canvas

“A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered, communicated, and acknowledged . It is also a belief from the customer about how value (benefit) will be delivered, experienced and acquired.” – Wikipedia

What value do you deliver to the customer? Which problem(s) are we helping to solve for the customer?

This is one of the more important exercises to do because if you don’t know what you’re providing and to who, you’re going to fall down a lot more than you need to.

It’s so important, that half of the business model canvas is actually called the value proposition canvas (I know, ALL of the canvases!).

Pause here, and go figure out your value proposition.

5. Key Activities

What do you need to do well to make money? What kind of activities do you need to do to provide that value to the customer?

How exactly are you going to provide value and what kinds of activities need to happen in order for your customer to get what they expected?

As we determined in the value proposition phase, there are certain things customers are going to expect from your business. The key activities block of the canvas helps us figure out what those are and what we should be paying attention to that might not necessarily drive value.

6. Key Resources

What key resources do you need to deliver that value proposition?

Key Resources are the important things your business needs to build out the value proposition you promise customers.  Without these resources, you wouldn’t be able to deliver value, and you wouldn’t have a business to build a business model canvas for.

There are four types of key resources: financial, intellectual, human and physical. These can be things like machinery, systems and processes, patents, salespeople, credit cards, and business loans.

7. Key Partners

This piece of the canvas can get a little confusing once you read through all the types of partnerships there are. But if you take a really granular look, these strategic partnerships can be as simple as a virtual assistant (VA) you’re going to hire, or someone you are going to get into an affiliate relationship with.

Having a partner can be as easy as referring customers to each other.  Or it can be as complicated as two businesses creating a third company together because they found a need in the market and can each contribute a piece of that new pie.

Partnerships are one of the essential building blocks of the business model canvas, and for any business. It’s almost impossible to have a business that provides value for its customer and doesn’t require some kind of partner.

Essentially, we are answering these questions: who is going to help you deliver on that value proposition? A business can’t be all things to all people, so what kind of partnerships do you need to deliver the best service?

8. Cost Structure

This piece is where we should be looking at your fixed costs and variable expenses. But also looking at whether you’re going to be a cost-driven or value-driven business. In short, this means  are you going to be focused on providing the lowest cost solution, or will you be focused on providing value and not worry so much about low costs.

There are a few types of cost structures, including cost-driven, value-driven, fixed costs, variable costs, etc.

What the major cost drivers for the business? Include key resources and key activities in this. What type of cost structure are you going to be using?

9. Revenue Streams

How is the business earning revenue from customers and delivering the value proposition?

There are a few main types of revenue streams (these are not exclusive):

• Subscription fees  – i.e. Netflix
• Fees for usage – i.e. cell phone companies
• Selling assets  – i.e. Amazon
• Lending/renting/leasing  – i.e. Airbnb, Zipcar, Turo
• Licensing  – photography and music
• Brokerage   fees  – i.e. real estate brokers
• Advertising  – i.e. Google Adsense or partnerships

When to Use the Business Model Canvas

The Canvas can be viewed as a one-page business plan, that can be easily updated. I think it’s extremely helpful for these business situations:

When you’re launching a new product or service.

Sure, it may seem as easy as saying, I’m going to start selling bread at my pastry shop. But then you dig deeper by filling out the canvas and realize you’re going to need new ovens, new employees (or at the very least  extensive training for current employees), new marketing strategies, a different managerial schedule (baking usually happens in the wee hours of the morning), and on, and on.

When you’re starting a new business (or blog!)

Many of us have literally “fallen into” entrepreneurship because we had a skill people wanted to pay us for, and we just started selling it without thinking strategically. It’s time to take a step back and get that clarity you’re missing. This will take a few hours out of your day, but it will add so much relief to your life, trust me!

When you need clarity on your current business (this was me!) and don’t have a serious business plan in place.

Similar to the one above, I fell into offering marketing services because the people around me needed help. I knew nothing about running a business, and have just been guessing my way through most of it. Not anymore!

When you want to compare a few different ideas for a new business, service, or product to sell.

This one is so critical! We always have a million ideas running around in our heads, why not narrow it down to the 2 or 3 we are most excited about and really dive deep into those ideas? Do we have a strong business model? Do people actually need what we are offering? Can we actually make a living from this?

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Business Plan vs. Business Model Canvas: What’s the Difference?

The main difference between Business Plan and Business Model Canvas is that a business plan is like a detailed story about your business, while a business model canvas is a simple visual chart.

Before we move to more differences, let’s first understand Business Plan and Business Model Canvas:

• Business Plan : A business plan is like a roadmap that shows how a business will work and grow. It includes goals, strategies, and how money will be used.
• Business Model Canvas : A business model canvas is a simple chart that shows how a business creates, delivers, and captures value. It helps understand how all the pieces of a business fit together.

Now, let’s get to Business Plan vs Business Model Canvas:

Major differences between Business Plan and Business Model Canvas

So, these are the main differences between the entities.

• Budgeting vs. Financial Planning
• Brief vs. Debrief
• Branding vs. Marketing

You can see other “differences between…” posts by clicking here .

If you have a related query, kindly feel free to let me know in the comments below.

How does a business plan differ from a business model canvas?

Business plans and business model canvas are two key decision making tools that entrepreneurs need to know (and use!). Despite sounding similar, however, they do differ significantly and shouldn't be confused.

This in-depth guide covers all you need to know about the two documents, including what they contain, their similarities and differences and the tools you can use to create either of them.

Ready? Let’s get started!

In this guide:

What is a business plan?

What is the business model canvas, business plan vs. business model canvas: what do they have in common.

• Business plan vs. business model canvas: what are the differences?

What tools can you use to write a business plan?

What tools can you use to write a business model canvas.

A business plan is a document providing detailed information about your business and its objectives for the years to come (usually 3-5 years).

To keep it short and simple, a business plan consists of two parts: 

• A financial forecast which provides information about the expected growth and profitability of your business, your potential funding requirements, and cash flow projections.
• A written part which provides the context and details needed to assess the relevance of the forecast: company overview, description of products and services, market analysis, strategy, operations, etc.

Formal business plans are usually written: to secure financing, to get buy-in from stakeholders (board members, investors, business partners) on the plan of action for the coming years, to convince suppliers to do business with the company, or to communicate the company's vision to staff members.

Financial savvy businesses regularly track their actual financial performance against the forecast included in their business plan and re-assess their progress against what was planned, and update their plans as needed.

Need a convincing business plan?

The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

In simple terms, a business model is how a company makes money, and the business model canvas is a tool to help entrepreneurs find a coherent business model for their business (or for new products or services).

A business model can be broken down into two parts:

• The first part deals with what a business is about. This relates to what the business sells - and all the activities that go into creating this. That means research, designing, raw material sourcing and costs, production, and testing. 
• The second part is concerned with selling what the business is about - the product or service it has invested in. These activities include everything from marketing to distribution and the sale transaction process. 

The business model canvas can be used to visualize a business model idea. It is a visual chart that includes simple, yet effective graphical illustrations that highlight every aspect of the potential business' operations.

It outlines the infrastructure, value proposition, and customers, including the target market, customer relations and marketing approach, revenue streams, and profit margins.

The business model canvas helps stakeholders brainstorm business model ideas. For example, they can come up with multiple business models and test them against each other to see which ones are viable and which ones aren’t.

As a result, this tool is only useful for those looking to start a business, launch a new product, or change their business model.

Since we’ve covered business goals and strategies in relation to both a business plan and a business model canvas, it stands to reason that there are at least some similarities between the two. 

In essence, both relate to the way a business functions and there is some overlap between the two. Some of the similarities between the two include:

Outlining business strategy

Both a business plan and a business model canvas outline key strategies that the business intends to use in day-to-day operations.

This includes key aspects such as how a business might create and distribute a product or service and identify corresponding revenue streams.

Decision-making tools

Since both tools help formulate some aspects of business strategy, they are useful in the decision-making process. 

With key business processes highlighted, and ultimate goals set out from the onset, decision-makers within the business have an easier time determining what their next steps should be. 

As such, these tools are used to help stakeholders make more accurate choices when tasked with making decisions. Therefore, businesses that utilise these tools are likely to have successful outcomes.

Indefinite methods

Neither a business plan nor a canvas offers any guarantees. Instead, they are tools that help test out and present your business idea to other stakeholders or managers.

Just because you’ve used these tools, it doesn’t mean that your business idea will pan out or your forecast will go as predicted.

In all likelihood, mapping out your strategy on a business model canvas may help you realize your business idea isn’t destined to be a success. 

An idea can seem good in an abstract form, but when you’re forced to consider all its intricacies, you may understand it won’t work. The good thing about business plans and models is that they can help you determine the viability of your idea before you go through with it.  

Business plan vs. business model canvas plan: what are the differences?

There are major key differences between business plans and business model canvasses. 

Let’s take a look at them in more detail!

Different scopes

As mentioned previously, a business model canvas is a strategic tool that helps find the best busines model for a business or product/service idea.

The business plan can only be drawn once you know what business model will be used. The role of the business plan is then to show how much it will cost to launch the business or product, and how much money it could make, and what it will take in terms of concrete resources (people, equipment, etc.).

Different length

The business model canvas is meant to fit on a single piece of paper ("the canvas").

A business plan, however, goes into much more detail. You can expect a typical business plan to be somewhere between 15 to 30 pages.

Different audiences

A business model canvas can be used to bounce off ideas, iron things out, and create a definite model for the business to follow. As such, it is primarily used by the internal team, typically the business founders and others involved in starting the business (or a product team in a large organization). 

A business plan is used internaly - by the management team and the board, and sometimes shared with the wider staff - but it’s not limited to this audience. It is also used with external stakeholders, like banks or investors in order to secure financing. And sometimes suppliers who need it to create their impression of the business’s potential for success before getting involved. 

One-off vs. recurring use

Typically, business model canvases are used prior to starting a business or when a change is needed to the existing business model. 

It is a tool used to visually represent the business idea before it comes to fruition. This means that the idea can be tested practically to decide whether it is viable or not.

Business plans go further, rather than being simple one-off go/no-go decision making tools, business plans are used continously and maintained up to date.

One key concern is knowing whether or not the company is on track to deliver what it planned in its business plan. To do so, managers compare the actual financials to what was planned in the forecast. And then re-plan if needed.

Business plans are also used to make key operational decisions. For example: should you hire a team of marketers or outsource to an agency? To make an informed decision, entrepreneurs can model both scenarios and decide based on the most promissing forecast.

Similarly, business plan are used to anticipate key risks. For example: what happens if sales are 20% below expectations?

As you can see business plan are fairly different from canvasses.

Need inspiration for your business plan?

The Business Plan Shop has dozens of business plan templates that you can use to get a clear idea of what a complete business plan looks like.

In this section, we will review three solutions for writing a professional business plan:

• Using Word and Excel
• Hiring a consultant to write your business plan 
• Utilizing an online business plan software

Create your business plan using Word or Excel

Writing a business plan using Word and Excel is not the best option.

First of all, this option is only recommended if you have a degree in finance or accounting and expertise in financial modelling. You are likely to make mistakes otherwise, and as a result banks or investors are unlikely to trust the accuracy of your financial forecast.

Using Word to draft the plan also means starting from scratch and formatting the document yourself once written - a process that is quite tedious. There are also no instructions or examples to guide you through what to write in each section.

Hire a consultant to write your business plan

This option is only feasible if you have the required finances - you probably need to budget at least £1.5k ($2.0k) for a complete business plan, more if you need to make changes after the initial version (which happens frequently after the initial meetings with lenders).

Despite the expensive price tag that comes with it, outsourcing your business plan to a consultant can be a good idea. Consultants are experienced in writing business plans and adept at creating financial forecasts without errors. Furthermore, outsourcing to a consultant saves you time and allows you to focus on the day-to-day operations of your business.

Use an online business plan software for your business plan

Another alternative is to use online business plan software .

There are several advantages to using specialized software:

• You are guided through the writing process by detailed instructions and examples for each part of the plan
• You can be inspired by already written business plan templates
• You can easily make your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
• You get a professional document, formatted and ready to be sent to your bank
• The software will enable you to easily track your actual financial performance against your forecast and update your forecast as time goes by

If you're interested in using this type of solution, you can try our software for free by signing up here .

To get started, you need the canvas itself which can be downloaded here .

Once you have the canvas you can either print multiple copies of it to compare alternative business models on paper, or draw it on a white board to brainstorm with your team.

We hope this guide helped you get a clear understanding of how the business model canvas differs from a business plan, and when you one or the other. Don't hesitate to contact our team if you have any questions regarding business planning.

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• Practical example of a business plan outline
• Business Model vs. Business Plan?

Know someone struggling with their business plan? Share this article and give them a nudge in the right direction!

Founder & CEO at The Business Plan Shop Ltd

Guillaume Le Brouster is a seasoned entrepreneur and financier.

Guillaume has been an entrepreneur for more than a decade and has first-hand experience of starting, running, and growing a successful business.

Prior to being a business owner, Guillaume worked in investment banking and private equity, where he spent most of his time creating complex financial forecasts, writing business plans, and analysing financial statements to make financing and investment decisions.

Guillaume holds a Master's Degree in Finance from ESCP Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Business & Management from Paris Dauphine University.

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Learn from the business planning experts, resources to help you get ahead, business model canvas, table of contents.

The Business Model Canvas presents a visual chart with elements describing a firm’s value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. It helps entrepreneurs and businesses systematically understand, design, and refine their business model.

Developed by Swiss business theorist Alexander Osterwalder and his co-authors, the Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool for developing new or documenting existing business models. Introduced in the book “Business Model Generation,” it has gained widespread adoption for business model innovation worldwide.

The Business Model Canvas consists of nine key segments:

• Key Partnerships : The network of suppliers and partners essential for the business.
• Key Activities : Primary actions necessary for a business’s operational success.
• Key Resources : Assets vital for creating and delivering the value proposition.
• Value Propositions : The collection of products and services that create value for specific customer segments.
• Customer Relationships : The nature of the relationships a company establishes with its customers.
• Channels : The ways in which a company delivers its value proposition to customers.
• Customer Segments : Different groups the business targets and serves.
• Cost Structure : The various costs involved in operating the business model.
• Revenue Streams : How the company generates income from each customer segment.

Application

• The Canvas is used for strategic business planning, ideation, and innovation. It allows entrepreneurs to visualize, test, and iterate on their business models, providing a comprehensive yet concise overview of how a business intends to operate and create value.
• The Business Model Canvas offers a straightforward approach to conceptualizing and evaluating a business model. Its single-page format makes it easier to understand, share, and modify than traditional, lengthy business plans, making it particularly beneficial for entrepreneurs in the planning and development stages of their businesses.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How does the Business Model Canvas aid in the strategic planning process?

The Business Model Canvas provides a clear and concise framework for entrepreneurs to map out the critical components of their business. It encourages a holistic view of the business, enabling the identification of potential opportunities and challenges, and assists in aligning business activities with the overall value proposition and customer needs.

• Can established businesses benefit from using the Business Model Canvas?

Yes, established businesses can benefit from using the Business Model Canvas. It serves as a valuable tool for re-evaluating and refining existing business models, exploring new market opportunities, or adapting to changes in the business environment. It can stimulate strategic thinking and innovation within established companies.

• Is the Business Model Canvas suitable for all types of businesses?

The Business Model Canvas is versatile and can be applied to various types of businesses, from startups to large corporations, and across different industries. Its flexibility allows it to be tailored to the specific needs and characteristics of different business models, making it a universally applicable tool for business model development.

Related Terms

Also see: Startup Expenses

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Business Model Canvas

What is the business model canvas.

A business model canvas provides a high-level, comprehensive view of the various strategic details required to successfully bring a product to market. The typical use case for this tool is to outline the fundamental building blocks of a business, but it can be used effectively for individual products as well. The exact ingredients may vary, but these are some of the typical components included:

• Customer segments —Who is going to use this product?
• Product value propositions —What is this going to do for the customer to make their life/job better?
• Revenue streams —How will the company make money from this product?
• Channels —How will the product be sold or distributed?
• Customer relationships —What is the success and support strategy for new customers?
• Key partners —What other companies or individuals are part of the development and go-to-market strategy?
• Key activities —What must happen internally to release this product?
• Key resources —What people, materials and budget are required to pull this off?
• Cost structure —How much will it cost to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the product?

Asking and answering these questions should be de rigueur for any new product, but this particular framework is useful for distilling the supporting business case down into something easily digestible. By forcing everything to be on a single page, each question must be answered succinctly, which often cuts through any grandstanding to illustrate whether each area is truly addressed and viable.

How do product managers use the business model canvas?

The business model canvas serves two primary purposes for product managers : focusing their thinking during its creation along with expediting and framing the conversation when communicating with others.

Because the business model canvas is a comprehensive summary of what the product will do, who will use it, why they’ll use it, how it will happen, and how the money works, it requires a lot of thinking and homework to put it together. This exercise is very helpful for product managers to fully understand the market opportunity and refine their story while uncovering potential problem areas and fully vetting their impact. Plus the process of boiling everything down to a single page ensures that what is included is as truthful and well supported as possible.

The business model canvas can serve as a continually referenceable touchstone for the product development process and beyond, essentially serving as a mission statement for the product. As conditions on the ground change and more is learned about the product’s market reception and usage, the canvas can be updated to accurately reflect the latest information; reviewing the canvas periodically is a worthy activity in and of itself.

As a communication tool, the business model canvas is an ideal document for our short attention span world and is as useful with the executive team as it is with a junior developer. Since it only contains the most salient and relevant information, the audience won’t be drowning in details or distracted by supporting evidence or non-sequiturs. The canvas can also create a universal vocabulary for the product and get everyone using the same language and concepts going forward.

Tips for using the business model canvas

Here is how to make the most of the business model canvas and the process of creating and maintaining it:

• Note assumptions and challenge them —Since a business model canvas is developed while a product is still “theoretical” there is often a lack of actual facts to rely on. Instead, educated guesses, informed opinions and assumptions are utilized to build it out. While there’s often no escaping these, anything in the canvas that is an assumption versus a proven fact should be called out, with every effort made to both challenge the assumption and anticipate the impact if the assumption turns out to be incorrect.
• Bounce it off a virgin audience —Fellow employees and even board members will approach a business model canvas with a trunkload of inherent biases. To truly test the veracity and completeness of a canvas, allow some outside parties to validate it independently. It should be a self-explanatory document, so allowing them to review it and provide feedback without any dialogue or explanations is a great test of its worthiness and thoroughness.
• It’s easy to update, so keep it current —Unlike longer, weightier documents, the single-page nature of the business model canvas means there’s no excuse for it to languish and fall behind the business’s current line of thinking or newly gathered information. Reviewing it on a regular basis and maintaining its accuracy enhances its usefulness and is a helpful process to note when assumptions or plans have changed.
• An ever-present reminder —Thoughts, plans, goals, and assumptions were laid out succinctly in the canvas with great care and deliberation. Going forward the canvas can be continually referred to for guidance, inspiration, and level setting as folks become swept up in the momentum of product development, sales, and marketing.
• Present it in pieces —Sure, the entire business model canvas fits on one piece of paper, but there is a lot of things on that 8 ½ x 11 inch page. When presenting it, discuss each piece individually, gradually revealing the entire contents. This will prevent information overload and allow the team to convey things narratively instead of an information dump.
• Reference all the evidence —Any hard data should be clearly referenced (if not included) in the canvas to give the arguments and statements as much legitimacy as possible. Reviewers will be trying to poke holes (as they should), so firm things up whenever there’s a chance.
• Be specific —No one needs a business model canvas to understand fundamental business case elements; it is intended to tell the story and rationale for this particular product. Cut out anything generic and make it as relevant to this exact opportunity as possible. In particular, link individual customer segments with their respective value propositions, since a product won’t be all things to all people.
• Create multiple canvases —During the early phases, generating more than one business model canvas based on divergent assumptions, target markets, or value propositions can be a useful tool for exploring different directions the product could head. After the plans are firmed up, multiple canvases can still be employed, this time to see how different scenarios pan out when key factors change… it can be used as a wargaming tool to prepare for different potential outcomes.
• Who, what, and why first. How and how much second —Although a business model canvas includes everything from a value proposition and personas to implementation costs and resources, everything should be driven from the market opportunity and rationale for bringing a product to market. If those aren’t solid, spending cycles on technology and costs is a waste of time.

Creating a business model canvas puts new product ideas under the microscope and pulls together disparate sources of intelligence, opinions, hunches and research into a single piece of paper. It forces critical thinking and analysis of assumptions and guesses and provides an excellent reference point for the entire organization.

Once the canvas is approved and productization begins, the canvas can also serve as a straw man for the product roadmap, lining up future features and functionality based on the priorities laid out in the document to achieve market success.

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Teaching the Business Model Canvas: Part 1 – Intro

October 4, 2021 doan winkel comments 0 comment.

When we ran a workshop with Dr. Alex Osterwalder about how he teaches his Business Model Canvas, attendees were so excited about what he was sharing, 98% of them voted to change our schedule on the fly and extend his session from 60 to 90 minutes.

The exercises he was sharing were too engaging to let him stop.

In this article, the first in a 3-part series, we’ll structure Osterwalder’s exercises into easy-to-implement lesson plans you can use with your students.

Exercise #1: Business Model Matching

To introduce students to the 9 components of the BMC, Dr. Osterwalder starts by giving students a set of business model hypotheses and asking them to place each one in the appropriate box of the BMC.

Prepping Before Class

To make the most efficient use of class time, assign students to watch these videos before class:

• Getting from Business Idea to Business Model
• Visualizing Your Business Model
• 9 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Model

Then you’ll want to print out the worksheets linked in the lesson plan below. Digital worksheets are also in the lesson plan if you’re teaching remotely.

Step 1: Fill the Boxes

Alex uses Airbnb in his first exercise because:

• Students are familiar with Airbnb
• As a two-sided marketplace, Airbnb is a great example of how one business model may need to fulfill the needs of multiple customer segments to be successful

Starting with the “Airbnb BMC: Travelers” worksheet, ask students to write each of the provided business model hypotheses in their appropriate boxes:

Copies of this worksheet are available in the lesson plan below.

We recommend each student complete this individually. While students will work in pairs for the next step, to help increase engagement and discussion, we like using Think. Pair. Share. with this type of exercise, which starts by having students work on their own.

Step 2: Pair

Next, ask students to pair up (if necessary, create breakout rooms for virtual students), and compare their answers. If there’s anything they disagree on, ask them to try to discuss and come to a consensus.

Note: this is an important part of the Think. Pair. Share. process. Talking with a peer helps them organize their thoughts better and practice vocalizing them. If your students are reluctant to speak in class, pairing students up like this before asking for a class-wide discussion can help inspire more interaction.

Step 3: Share

Reconvene the class. Go one by one through the boxes and ask a pair to share what they wrote for a particular box. Go through each of the boxes in this order:

• Customer Segments
• Value Proposition
• Customer Relationship
• Revenue Streams
• Cost Structure
• Key Activities
• Key Resources
• Key Partners

Ask a new pair to report out what they wrote for each box and then ask the rest of the class if they had anything else different for that box. If student pairs disagree on what should be in a particular box, use that as an opportunity to increase discussion and, before you reveal the correct answer, have your students vote on which answer they think will be right.

Slides with the correct answers, like the one above, are available in the lesson plan below.

Step 4: Repeat with Airbnb Hosts

Now ask students to fill out the AirBnB BMC: Hosts worksheet using the same Think-Pair-Share technique. 

Take time to explain that many businesses don’t have just one business model as a part of their success. Instead, many businesses, like Airbnb, are a multi-sided market. In this business model, the needs of two parties must be met.

You can highlight the popularity of this business model by pointing out that Uber, Doordash, Amazon all have this multi-sided market where the business has to keep multiple customers happy.

Summary & Next Steps

Alex prefers simple matching exercises like these as a quick way to introduce the BMC. For more details on how to use it, including worksheets and slides, check out the free lesson plan below.

Next up, Alex provides students with BMCs that are partially filled out and asks students to fill in the rest – which we’ll detail in the next article in this series! We’ll share two more steps in the process Dr. Osterwalder uses to teach the business model canvas:

• How to use fill in the blank exercises to help students create their own canvases
• How to use prioritization exercises to teach how to use the BMC to test business model assumptions

Want More from Dr. Osterwalder?

Find more about Alex’s work at Strategyzer.com .

Watch Alex Teach

If you’d like to see Alex teach the Business Model Canvas himself, just enter your email below to watch his full workshop on Teaching the BMC:

Get the Teaching the Business Model Canvas Lesson Plan

We’ve created a detailed lesson plan for the “Teaching the Business Model Canvas: Part 1” exercise to walk you and your students through the process step-by-step.

Read Part 2 In This Series of Teaching the Business Model Canvas

Check out the second post in this series, focused on using a fill-in-the-blank exercise to help students develop their own hypotheses.

What’s Next?

In upcoming posts, we will share two more steps in the process Dr. Osterwalder uses to teach the business model canvas.

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Original text

Startup Roadmap”  - Full or Lean Business Plan Decision

Just like a roadmap, a business plan helps ensure you get to your intended destination. From our decades of experience working with thousands of startup business owners, we at SCORE have learned that a business plan can smooth the path to success and help protect you from the risk of failure.  The data is very clear.  According to a study reported by Small Business Trends, entrepreneurs who have business plans are twice as likely to obtain capital and more likely to grow than entrepreneurs who do not.

But the biggest benefit of a business plan is the thinking you’re forced to do while creating it. You will get new ideas that will make your business even better. You will figure out ways to overcome potential obstacles along the road to startup. You will identify alternate routes you can take if things don’t work out quite as you expected.

This is the fourth in a series of columns that provide several helpful business topics for the new small business.  It is based on one of SCORE’s recent projects called “Startup Roadmap” and outlines every step in starting a business.  A SCORE mentor may use this program to help you reach your goal smoothly.

Fortunately, writing a business plan no longer involves spending months crafting a 60-page document. There are easier, faster, and more visual approaches you can use to help you make decisions, calculate numbers and get your ideas down on paper if you don’t want to use a traditional business plan. My first suggestion is to be aware of the two main approaches and choose between these options for doing a plan. 

When starting out on a trip, some people prefer to pack light, with just a carry-on and a basic itinerary. Others like to bring guidebooks and pack several suitcases to prepare for every eventuality. This analogy applies to business planning. Whichever camp you fall into, there’s a business planning method for you. 

Let us take a closer look at the traditional business plan and the Business Model Canvas so you can select the right planning method for you .  

The Traditional Business Plan  is a thoroughly detailed written document that can span dozens of pages. It typically includes the following sections:

• Executive Summary : A one-page overview summing up your business, product/service, marketing plan, management team, operations, and financial projections.
• Company Description : A description of your business, its products/services, your goals, and your market
• Products and Services : A more in-depth description of your products/services, what problems they solve for customers, and what makes them unique.
• Marketing Plan : A detailed description of your industry and competitors, your unique value proposition, your target customers and how you will reach them, and your distribution channels.
• Operational Plan : Explains the daily operations of your business, including location, equipment, employees, and processes.
• Management & Organization : Description of your management team and/or key employees and their expertise.
• Startup Expenses & Capitalization : Explains how much it will cost to open your business and how much capital you will need.
• Financial Plan : Detailed projections of your financial goals using financial statements to show how you will use capital and when your business will break even.
• Appendices : Backup information or documentation to support the other sections of your plan.

The Business Model Canvas  (sometimes called the Lean Canvas for startups) also emphasizes that a key to starting and building a successful business is planning. The rationale is that sometimes, a business plan is required, but it’s not always the answer to creating a successful business.  Sometimes, you need to think lean.

Some sources suggest that all that is needed is to use a one-page approach but most important is to:

• Determine the key categories of starting, testing, and growing your business.
• Identify your target customers and what you need to do to get them to buy from you.
• Recognize your customers’ problems and how your product or service will solve them.
• Communicate the value propositions that set you apart from your competition.
• Test your solutions and get valuable feedback.
• Determine your cost structure and revenue streams.

Just like a roadmap, a business plan helps ensure you get to your intended destination.  After this planning, you should know how much it will cost to get your business off the ground, whether you have enough savings to fund it on your own, or whether you’ll need some type of additional financing to get started. (Additional financing doesn’t necessarily mean bank financing; it could include borrowing against your personal assets, using credit cards, or borrowing from friends and family.)  My next column will focus on the topic of finding funding.

Finding Funding for Your New Business Your options in finding Funding for Your New Business

Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org

Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.