Business Model Canvas Maker

About the Business Model Canvas Maker

The Business Model Canvas puts a whole business on one page in nine blocks: who the customers are, what you offer them, how you reach them and keep them, how the money comes in, and what it takes — the activities, resources, partners and costs — to deliver it. The Lean Canvas adapts it for a new idea: the problem, the solution, the key metrics and an unfair advantage take the place of partners, activities, resources and relationships.

Type each idea as a note in its block — short, one idea a note, like a sticky note on a wall. Every block asks its question and has more questions to work through; the blocks are numbered in the order to fill them in. Give the notes colours, and say in the colour key what each colour stands for: one colour a customer segment lets you follow each segment through its value, channels and revenue.

Start from an example — a bakery, a subscription app, a meal-planning service or a repair marketplace — or from an empty canvas, keep up to twenty canvases in this browser, and switch a canvas between the two kinds. The finished canvas is a one-page landscape document on A4, A3 or US Letter, which downloads as PDF, PNG, Markdown or CSV with a Pro pass, as does a blank canvas with every question, to print; without one, the canvas works in full and the page shows as a free preview.

The nine blocks

• Customer Segments — the groups of people or organisations you serve. Value Propositions — the problem you solve or the gain you create for each.
• Channels — how customers find out, buy, receive and get help. Customer Relationships — how you win, keep and grow them.
• Revenue Streams — what customers pay for, and how.
• Key Resources, Key Activities and Key Partners — what the business needs, does and gets from others to deliver all of that.
• Cost Structure — the costs that come with it.

The right-hand side is about customers and value; the left-hand side is about how the business delivers it. Most people start with customer segments and value propositions.

The Lean Canvas

Ash Maurya adapted the canvas for start-ups, where the first risk is building something nobody needs. Problem (with the existing alternatives customers use today), Solution, Key Metrics and Unfair Advantage replace key partners, key activities, key resources and customer relationships; the Unique Value Proposition gains a high-level concept, and customer segments name their early adopters. Start with the problem and the customers together, then the value proposition, the solution and the channels, then revenue and costs, and the metrics and unfair advantage last. When you switch a canvas between the two kinds, notes in matching blocks keep their place — value propositions and the unique value proposition, key activities and the solution — and the page lists any that had none.

Attribution and licence

The Business Model Canvas is by Strategyzer AG and the Lean Canvas by Ash Maurya (LEANSTACK), adapted from it; both are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. The canvases here are redrawn, with questions of our own, and every page, picture, Markdown and CSV file this tool makes of a canvas carries the attribution and the licence — keep it when you share or adapt your canvas.

The document and the files

• PDF: one landscape page on A4, A3 (for a poster) or US Letter: the blocks where the canvas puts them, your notes as coloured cards, the colour key and the attribution. Crowded blocks get smaller type; a block that still cannot hold every note says how many more there are, and they follow on a second page.
• PNG: the page as a picture, for slides and chat.
• Markdown: the canvas as text, block by block, for a document, a wiki or a pitch outline.
• CSV: one row a note, with its block, colour and what the colour stands for, for a spreadsheet.
• Blank canvas: an empty canvas with every question, to print and fill in with real sticky notes.
• Backup: the canvas as a small file you can open again here, in any browser — your own data, always available.

Limitations

• Up to 12 notes in each block, 200 characters a note, and 20 canvases in this browser.
• The questions help you think; they do not judge whether a business model will work. Test the riskiest notes with real customers.
• The PDF and its PNG draw Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese letters; notes in other scripts (Hindi or Japanese, for example) show as “?” there, and the page says so — the Markdown and CSV files keep them.
• The canvases are kept in this browser on this device: save a backup to move one to another device or to share it.

Privacy

Everything happens in your browser. Your canvases are kept in this browser’s storage on this device and are never uploaded; a backup file is made on your device.