<aside> 📌 This home page is meant to be read before you start using the Lean Canvas. However, if you are already familiar with the Lean Canvas concept, you may visit the linked template page and click the duplicate page button on the top right of the page.

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📜 What is a Business Model?

A business model describes how a business creates a product, delivers the product to customers, and captures value. It defines the products or services that the company intends to sell, as well as its target market and any expected costs. For both new and existing businesses, business models are critical. They assist new and growing businesses in attracting investment, recruiting talent, and motivating management and employees. Established businesses should revise their business strategies on a regular basis to avoid missing out on future trends and challenges. Investors use business plans to analyze companies that they are interested in.

📚 What is the Lean Canvas?

The Lean Canvas is a one-page business plan template that assists you in deconstructing your idea into its core assumptions. It does away with lengthy business plans in favor of a one-page business model. Whereas the Business Model Canvas is mainly used for traditional businesses, the Lean Canvas is more focused on lean startups.

There are 9 components on the canvas. When combined, these components create a fairly consistent picture of a business's primary drivers:

📜 Component 🤔 What You Should Do
🔐 Problems List your top three problems and how these problems are being solved today
👥 Customer Segments List your target customers and their characteristics
🎁 Unique Value Propositions A single, clear, compelling message that states why you are different and worth paying attention to
🔑 Solutions Outline a possible solution for each problem listed above
📺 Channels List your path to your customers
🤑 Revenue Streams List your sources of revenue
💵 Cost Structure List your fixed and variable costs
📈 Key Metrics List the key numbers that tell you how your business is doing
💪 Unfair Advantage Something that cannot easily be bought or replaced

The Lean Canvas is a popular tool for business model innovation among entrepreneurs and business owners. Fundamentally, it accomplishes three goals:

  1. Focus — By removing numerous pages of stuff that often accompany a conventional business plan, the lean canvas allows for increased clarity and focus on what's driving the business
  2. Flexibility — It's much simpler to plan, alter the model, and experiment with things when they're contained on a single page.
  3. Transparency — When your business model is summarized on a single page, your team will have a lot simpler time comprehending it and will be much more inclined to buy into your vision.

An entire lean canvas can be completed in 15 to 30 minutes. Take a break, come back, brainstorm, and then tweak one or two components. Rinse and repeat as needed. When you're finished, you should have multiple variations of your startup business model. Each of them is a business plan that you can test out in the real world!

🧠 How To Use The Template

  1. Visit the template page below ↓

    Lean Canvas

  2. Click the duplicate page button on the top right of the page.

  3. Edit the notes accordingly and answer each component based on your business plan. The template has been filled in with an example business (CloudFire) to help you better understand the components.

  4. Enjoy! 😄

🔖 Resources & Guides

To do more research on the Lean Canvas, I recommend the following resources:

An Introduction to Lean Canvas

Lean Canvas - What, Why, and How To Use it For Your Business