The Nine Blocks at a Glance
The canvas has nine blocks in three zones. The customer's side sits on the right, the delivery side on the left, and the value proposition between them, with costs and revenue running along the bottom.
Alexander Osterwalder developed the canvas from his 2004 doctoral research at the University of Lausanne, and he and Yves Pigneur published it in Business Model Generation in 2010. It is free to use and adapt under a Creative Commons licence, as long as copies credit Strategyzer.com, which publishes it, and adapted versions are shared on the same terms.
Block | Where it sits | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
Customer Segments | Right | Who exactly do we serve? |
Value Propositions | Centre | What do we get done for them? |
Channels | Right | How do they find, buy and receive it? |
Customer Relationships | Right | What kind of relationship do they expect? |
Revenue Streams | Bottom right | How and when do they pay? |
Key Activities | Left | What must we do well? |
Key Resources | Left | What can the model not run without? |
Key Partnerships | Left | Who does what we do not do ourselves? |
Cost Structure | Bottom left | What does running all of this cost? |
A freelance bookkeeper can fill all nine in ten minutes. Her segment is independent restaurants, her value proposition is books closed by the fifth of each month, her revenue is a $400 monthly retainer, and her key resource is her own time.
The right side says why anyone would pay. The left side says whether you can deliver for less than they pay, and the value proposition is the one sentence both sides have to agree on.
A founder's canvas has a sharp segment, value proposition and revenue stream. Every block on the left says 'to be decided'. What can the canvas not tell her yet?
Whether she can deliver the promise for less than customers pay
Whether anyone wants what she is offering
How customers will hear about her
What price she has chosen
The right side shows that customers want the thing and how they will pay. Only the left side shows what delivering it takes and costs, so with it blank she cannot tell whether the price covers the cost of serving a customer. Demand, channel and price are all already on the page.