Glossary

Your go-to resource for acronyms, jargons, terminology, and useful words for product and customer experience teams.

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Business Model Canvas

What is the Business Model Canvas?

A business model canvas is an essential tool for any business looking to successfully bring a product to market. The canvas provides a high-level, comprehensive view of the various strategic details required for success. 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 ingredients may vary depending on the product, but these are some of the typical components included:

1. Customer Segments: Who is going to use this product?

2. Product Value Propositions: What is this going to do for the customer to make their life/job better?

3. Revenue Streams: How will the company make money from this product?

4. Channels: How will the product be sold or distributed?

5. Customer Relationships: What is the success and support strategy for new customers?

6. Key Partners: What other companies or individuals are part of the development and go-to-market strategy?

7. Key Activities: What must happen internally to release this product?

8. Key resources—What people, materials, and budget are required to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the product?

9. Cost structure—How much will it cost to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the product?

Asking questions like “What people, materials, and budget are required to pull this off?” and “How much will it cost to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the product?” is essential for any new product. But this particular framework is also useful for distilling the supporting business case down into something that’s easy to understand. By forcing everything onto a single page, each question must be answered concisely, which can help cut through any grandstanding and show whether each area is truly addressed and viable.

How do product managers use the business model canvas?

The business model canvas is a great tool for product managers because it helps them focus their thoughts while they’re creating it, and it also speeds up and organizes the conversation when they’re communicating with other people about the product.

Putting together a business model canvas can be a lot of work because it’s a summary of everything the product will do, who will use it, why they’ll use it, how it will happen, and how the money works. But it’s worth the effort because it’s such a helpful tool.

The business model canvas is a document that product development teams can refer to as a guide for their work. It can help to keep the team focused on the product’s mission and goals, and can be updated as new information is learned about the product’s market reception and usage. Reviewing the canvas periodically can help to ensure that it accurately reflects the latest information.

The business model canvas is a great communication tool for our fast-paced world. It’s concise and to the point, making it perfect for presentations to both executive teams and junior developers. The audience won’t be overwhelmed with details or distracted by irrelevant information. The canvas can also help create a common language for the product, so everyone is on the same page going forward.

The product canvas is a tool that helps product managers get everyone on the same page when it comes to a new product. It covers every aspect of the product, from sales and marketing to customer experience to implementation and support. This way, everyone in the organization can see how their work fits into the big picture and how it contributes to the overall effort.

Tips for using the business model canvas

Tips for using the business model canvas:

  • -Note assumptions and challenge them: Since a business model canvas is often developed while a product is still in its planning stages, there is often a lack of actual facts to rely on. Instead, educated guesses informed opinions, and assumptions are used to build it out. To make the most of the canvas, it’s important to challenge these assumptions early on and continue to do so as new information arises. This will help ensure that your business model is based on as many facts as possible.
  • -Make sure it’s always up-to-date: As your product or service progresses and changes, so should your business model canvas. Make sure to keep it updated with the latest information so that it can continue to be a valuable tool in your planning process.
  • Generating multiple business model canvases: It can help you explore different directions your product could take during the early stages. Once your plans are more solidified, you can still use multiple canvases to help you plan and make decisions.
  • Remember to prioritize the who, what, and why first, and the how and how many second. Everything on your business model canvas should be driven by the market opportunity and your rationale for bringing the product to market.

The business model canvas is a powerful tool, but it’s important to keep a few things in mind when using it. First of all, it’s important to get feedback from people who haven’t been involved in the development of the canvas. This will help you to get an unbiased opinion about the completeness and accuracy of the information on the canvas. Secondly, it’s easy to update the canvas as new information arises, so make sure that you keep it current with the latest thinking of the business.

Conclusion

The business model canvas is an excellent tool for new product development as it brings together all the relevant data, opinions, hunches, and research in one place. This allows for critical thinking and analysis of assumptions to take place and provides an excellent reference point for the entire organization.

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