Business Model Canvas (Basics)

Build successful companies & products people will buy

Why Should I Take This Course?

Do you want to create products that actually make money? In theory, the recipe for success takes only two ingredients: a product and customers who want to buy that product. Unfortunately, these two ingredients are not that easy to find in practice…

Many product managers, entrepreneurs and innovators focus on engineering really awesome products … and then struggle to find customers who want to buy them. One missing piece on the road to success is the business model. But writing business models has traditionally been hard and taken weeks or months to do.



The Topic of this Course

This course will teach you a simple, but powerful tool to quickly sketch business models: the Business Model Canvas.

The Business Model Canvas (a tool invented by Alexander Osterwalder in his influential book "Business Model Generation") allows you to draft new business models in hours or even minutes! It is a visual representation of a business and is thus much easier to understand than traditional 100-page-business-plans. It also helps you to think about the important parts of your business model in a structured way. There are countless applications of this tool in various practical methods.



What You Will Learn

This course will teach you what the canvas is and how to sketch a business model with it. It will build a foundation, so you'll be well equipped to take advantage of further courses diving deep into certain applications and methods (these applications and methods are not part of this foundation level course). Here is what you will learn in this course:

What is the Business Model Canvas?
Why do we Need It?
How does it compare to More Traditional Business Models?
How to Fill in Each of the 9 Building Blocks?
How Do the Parts Fit Together?
How to Do a Rough Revenue Estimate?
What does a Full Business Model Look Like as a Canvas?
How to Sketch Your Own Business Model?


What do You need to Take this Course?

You need very little – this is a beginner's course. You should bring some curiosity for business models. Also a basic knowledge of business model terms like "customer", "revenue" or "distribution" will be very helpful. Other than that, you need no prior knowledge of the Business Model Canvas or other business modelling methods. Should you ever feel lost during the course, feel free to send me questions – I will do what I can to bring you up to speed!



Your Instructor

Matthias Orgler is an experienced consultant on business model generation and product innovation. In his job he ensures that ideas earn revenue and become a market success. From scouting innovations in Silicon Valley he got a feeling for business models and markets. He has advised international companies large and small and applied a broad variety of methods that turn ideas into successful businesses.