How to use the Business Model Canvas as a Checklist

The Business Model Canvas is a simple tool to create, analyze and optimize business models. It’ easy to grasp and understand. If you don’t know it yet, learn about it in this video course.

But to harness its real power, you need to be familar with the methods surrounding the canvas and how you apply them in practice. In this series of articles I want to show you a few of these methods and how we apply them in the real world.

The most straight forward way of using the Business Model Canvas is: the checklist. The nine fields of the canvas provide a nice overview of the areas of your business model that still need some thinking. Please don’t stop there and use the canvas only as a checklist– like so many people sigh. There is so much more this great tool can do for you and your business! Having said that, using the canvas as a checklist is still a valid method that can help you on your road to success.

Two sides

On the macro level, the Business Model Canvas is divided into two areas:

• the right half represents the part of your business facing the customer