Business Model Canvas
A nine-block template that describes how an organization creates, delivers and captures value, from customers to costs.
What it’s for
It helps design and business talk about the same thing and see whether an idea, besides being desirable, can sustain itself.
Key elements
Nine blocks
Customers, value proposition, channels, relationships, revenue, resources, activities, partners and costs.
On one page
Everything visible at once, to see how one change affects the rest.
Hypotheses, not certainties
Each note is an assumption to be tested.
How it’s done
Start with the people you serve and what you offer them.
Fill in the blocks on how the offer reaches them, how you charge for it and what it takes to deliver it.
Mark the doubts and test the riskiest ones first.
Applications in design
When to use it
When you need to see whether an idea can sustain itself, or compare several ways of taking it forward.
Avoid
Filling it in once and filing it away as if it were a finished plan.
Don’t fall for it
The canvas doesn’t tell you whether people care; combine it with research.
Connections
Authors and works
- 2004
Alexander Osterwalder
In his doctoral thesis in Lausanne he proposed an orderly way to describe business models, the basis of the canvas.
- 2010
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
Published the canvas with its nine blocks, designed to be worked on as a team, large and with sticky notes.
Sources
Original sources
- Osterwalder, A. (2004). The business model ontology: A proposition in a design science approach [Doctoral dissertation, Université de Lausanne]. View source: Osterwalder, A. (2004)
- Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation. Wiley.
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