Welcome to this course on creating a Business Model Canvas. We are excited to embark with you on this crucial business process, where you will learn how to create a Business Model Canvas step-by-step using Alexander Osterwalder’s model. Before diving into the content, we invite you to learn a bit more about this course to get the most out of it!
Meet Your Teacher
Colin Smith, a digital transformation specialist with over 24 years of experience in digital businesses, will accompany you throughout this course. Working first in the U.S. in startups and scale-ups like Yahoo!, AOL, and LinkedIn, he then became a business consultant for large brands and early-stage companies, where the Business Model Canvas was often key.
Passionate about facilitating learning and helping businesses get their strategy right, Colin is a registered and certified facilitator for the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method and materials, and the Google Digital Academy program. He is also an international speaker and a regular expert speaker on Squared Online.
Get to Know the Founders Reading Guild
During your time learning about the Business Model Canvas, we’re going to use a fictitious startup company to help illustrate how the canvas works.
The Founders Reading Guild is the brainchild of a small group of entrepreneurs who had been working in the startup industry for a number of years. In their experience, they realized that many founders of early-stage businesses have great ideas but don’t always have the knowledge or experience to be successful.
Typically, startup founders are keen to learn how to perform better and make their fledgling startup a success. They long for information and often get it through the wide choice of business books available. However, the variety of material on so many different topics makes it hard to figure out what to read and when! In addition, the various responsibilities that fall on a founder, the extent of his prior experience and the many stages a startup goes through, would require different learning in different phases. So, figuring out the best books at the best time would be very helpful!
This is how the founding team identified the opportunity. Below are some of the key features of the new business to give you an idea of what it’s about:
A startup founder joins the book club and pays a subscription fee.
The book club curates the best books for the startup founders and supplies two to three books per month to each member. The books are chosen based on their relevance as the startup grows and moves through different stages. This can depend on the following:
How they rated previous books.
The stage their business is in.
What industry their business operates in.
What areas of interest they selected.
The books will typically be drawn from topics related to operational aspects such as marketing, finance, product design, agile ways of working, etc., as well as leadership and well-being, to give a balanced perspective to the learning.
The idea is that there might be a monthly meeting that founders could attend (virtually or in person) to discuss their learning with others. This could be an enhanced membership.
While the team has formulated these ideas, they haven’t yet turned them into a clear value proposition, nor have they clarified the business model. Guess what? We’re going to help them do so using the Business Model Canvas.
Apply the Course Contents to Your Own Business Idea
If you have your own business idea, we strongly encourage you to fill out the Business Model Canvas for it as you go through this course, besides working on The Founders Reading Guild case we have provided. You’ll be surprised by how clear and solid your business idea will become at the end of this process. And who knows, maybe by the end of this course, you’ll be ready to launch your business.
Now that you know what lies ahead, we can explore the Business Model Canvas itself. Are you ready? Then let's get started!
