A new template for our users: The Business Model Canvas

Technology

We have added a new template for our users: The Business Model Canvas.

The Business Model Canvas is an increasingly popular tool for startups to systematically analyze their proposed business model by identifying:

  • Key Partners
  • Key Activities
  • Key Resources
  • Value Propositions
  • Customer Relationships
  • Channels
  • Customer Segments
  • Cost Structure
  • Revenue Streams

Using this template is easy: when you start a new project, you will find “Business Model Canvas” among the choices for Task Board projects:

Selecting the Business Model Canvas as the template
Selecting the Business Model Canvas as the template

You can also access the template directly at https://kerika.com/m/GFXC, and click on the “Use this template” button on the upper-right corner to get started fast.

Once you start your new project using this template, your task board looks like this:

Using the Business Model Canvas
Using the Business Model Canvas (Click to enlarge)

Each of the main sections of the Business Model Canvas are presented as columns on this task board, and you can customize this as you like:

Customizing the Business Model Canvas
Customizing the Business Model Canvas

Individual cards on this task board are setup and ready for you to fill in; here’s an example:

Individual cards for the Business Model Canvas
Individual cards for the Business Model Canvas (Click to enlarge)

The card shown above, as an example, can be used to identify one of your key suppliers. For this supplier (and for all of your other key suppliers), you should identify the motivations of this supplier: why this supplier would want to do business with you? Motivations could include:

  • Supplier is seeking optimizations and economies of scale
  • Supplier is seeking to reduce risk and uncertainty
  • Supplier is looking to acquire particular resources and activities.

For each supplier, you should identify the key activities that will be performed: this can added to a simple Google Doc, and attached to this card. (We have provided Google Docs templates for individual cards.)

And, finally, for each supplier you should identify the key resources that will be acquired; this can be added to the same Google Doc, or listed separately.

In this way you can easily work through the business model canvases various steps.

Using a process template like Kerika’s is vastly superior to simply printing out a large poster of the canvas, because the cards in the Kerika process template can be used to support conversations, manage content, track status, and collaborate across multiple locations: and that’s just not possible with a paper canvas!

The Business Model Canvas is also gaining popularity within larger organizations that are seeking to adopt (and adapt?) lean startup principles, so we expect that this new template will be of interest to a wide variety of users. And, by the way, creating this template is just part of an ongoing process here at Kerika, to capture and present best practices for a variety of professions and industries!