Business model · Diagnose, Explore

Business Model Canvas

The whole business on one page across nine blocks. Deliberately shallow everywhere, which makes it excellent for seeing how the parts connect and useless for depth on any of them.

Stage

01 Diagnose, 02 Explore

Works at

Business

Maturity

An idea → Established SME

Time

Half a day

What it is

Osterwalder and Pigneur's nine-block description of how a business creates, delivers and captures value. Its value is systemic rather than analytical: it shows how the parts connect, and specifically where they fail to.

Customer segments: Who you serve, distinguished by their needs rather than their labels. Multiple segments usually mean multiple canvases.
Value propositions: What you do for each segment and why they choose you. Should map one-to-one onto segments; a proposition with no segment is an aspiration.
Channels: How the proposition reaches them, across awareness, evaluation, purchase, delivery and after-sales. Businesses usually describe one and operate five.
Customer relationships: What kind of relationship each segment expects and gets — self-service, personal, dedicated, community. Expensive to change and rarely deliberate.
Revenue streams: What each segment actually pays for, and how. Distinct from what you think you sell.
Key resources: The assets the model requires — physical, intellectual, human, financial.
Key activities: What the business must do well for the model to work.
Key partnerships: Who you depend on and what they provide. The block most often left vague, and frequently where the real risk sits.
Cost structure: What it costs to run, and whether the model is cost-driven or value-driven. Should reconcile to the resources, activities and partners above.

The mistake people makeFilling every block with a category rather than a specific produces a canvas that describes any business in your sector. The value is in entries specific enough that a competitor's canvas would look visibly different.

What it’s forYou need the whole business model visible on one page, especially before changing part of it.

What it’s not forYou need depth on one block. The Canvas is deliberately shallow everywhere.

How you run it

Start with the customer segments and the value propositionEverything else exists to serve those two. Starting from activities or resources produces a description of your org chart.
Fill every block, including the uncomfortable onesCost structure and key partners are routinely skipped or generalised. They are where the model's honesty lives.
Be specific, not categorical"Direct sales" is a category. "Six field reps covering the north, averaging four visits a week" is a canvas entry.
Trace the connectionsDoes each revenue stream trace back to a value proposition and a segment? Does each cost trace to an activity or resource? Orphans are the finding.
Look for the contradictionMost canvases contain one: a segment nothing serves, a cost with no corresponding activity, a channel nobody funds. That is what the exercise was for.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

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🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

People who understand each part of the business
Actual numbers on revenue and cost
Willingness to fill the awkward blocks honestly

You’ll end up with

Nine blocks completed with specifics, not categories
The connections and contradictions between them
The one or two blocks that do not add up

Runs well with

Acquisition screen and synergy thesis Adjacency map AI opportunity map AI risk classification and governance