Lessons Learned

I recently returned from a three day educators workshop on the Business Model Canvas (BMC) and Lean entrepreneurial process. There were a number of important points from the workshop that served as reminders for me, and I thought this should pass them on.

People, money and knowledge are the three ingredients that bridge opportunity and value. I think of these as the triangle of success. Miss one of these items and your startup is destined for failure. A caveat about money: In this success triangle, consider your customers. Customers lead to money, not the other way around.

Story telling is one way entrepreneurs can convey their value proposition. All entrepreneurs should become good storytellers. Everyone remembers a good story, but when was the last time you remembered a great statistic? Entrepreneurs need to understand the nature of a good story arc and bring that arc into all their pitches and conversations. People remember stories – make yours a good one.

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is founded upon evidence-based entrepreneurship. The Business Model Canvas is uses the scientific method to reduce the uncertainty in a startup. Get out of the building and get the facts. Facts are the evidence that will lead to better results.

It is okay to receive affirmation for being wrong. Stay true to the lean process. Fail fast and reduce uncertainty. Either the hypothesis is valid or not. An entrepreneur will do an injustice if they try to justify their results to meet expectations.

In an educational setting or classroom, the focus of BMC tends to be on the product market fit because many individuals going through the program are not ready for the strategic partners, activities and resources sections. This may be true in the classroom, but in our accelerator companies must be ready to launch. All nine components of BMC are important. There two basic section of BMC: The front end deals with product market fit and the back end deals with startup operations and activities. The product market fit must be established and validated before contemplating the operations and activities of BMC. Based on my participation in this workshop, I can see how a two section approach to teaching the BMC could be valuable.

There were other lessons learned as well and will be incorporated into our next cohort. A few improvements will be adding videos for client portfolios, an increased focus on understanding customer archetypes and graduating our clients with an eleven item portfolio.

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