Business Model Generation is a must read for any business person. It's the best framework I know of for understanding and communicating a business or idea. I've used the framework my whole professional career. I enjoyed revisiting the genesis point and picked up a couple new ideas.
Key Takeaways
Memorable Quotes
Rating: 9/10
This is a great book for anyone in business. It's best read when thinking through your own examples. Use an idea or existing business not covered in the book. Try reverse engineering a canvas from an existing company to better understand it!
Key Takeaways
- Business Models have 9 key parts in this framework:
- Customer Segments
- Value Propositions
- Channels
- Customer Relationships
- Revenue Streams
- Key Resources
- Key Activities
- Key Partnerships
- Cost Structure
- The Business Model Canvas presents these 9 pieces in a way that shows their relation to one another.
- Visualizing a business model allows you to understand a business. It then allows you to experiment with ways of changing that business to see what happens.
- You can use your Business Model Canvas to tell a story about the business to interested parties.
- You need to review your business model to understand if and how it needs to change.
Memorable Quotes
- A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value
- A business model really is a system where one element influences the other; it only makes sense as a whole. Capturing that big picture without visualizing it is difficult. In fact, by visually depicting a business model, one turns its tacit assumptions into explicit information. This makes the model tangible and allows for clearer discussions and changes. Visual techniques give “life” to a business model and facilitate co-creation.
- companies should focus on one of three value disciplines: operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy.
- One way multi-sided platforms solve this problem is by subsidizing a Customer Segment. Though a platform operator incurs costs by serving all customer groups, it often decides to lure one segment to the platform with an inexpensive or free Value Proposition in order to subsequently attract users of the platform’s “other side.” One difficulty multi-sided platform operators face is understanding which side to subsidize and how to price correctly to attract customers.
- A Value Proposition creates value for a Customer Segment through a distinct mix of elements catering to that segment’s needs. Values may be quantitative (e.g. price, speed of service) or qualitative (e.g. design, customer experience).
- There’s not a single business model . . . There are really a lot of opportunities and a lot of options and we just have to discover all of them.” Tim O’Reilly, CEO, O’Reilly
- Telling a story that illustrates how your business model solves a customer problem is a clear way to introduce listeners to the idea. Stories give you the “buy-in” needed to subsequently explain your model in detail.
- Like seeing the doctor for an annual exam, regularly assessing a business model is an important management activity that allows an organization to evaluate the health of its market position and adapt accordingly.
Rating: 9/10
This is a great book for anyone in business. It's best read when thinking through your own examples. Use an idea or existing business not covered in the book. Try reverse engineering a canvas from an existing company to better understand it!
