What is a Lean Canvas?
Lean Canvas is a 1-page business plan template created by Ash Maurya that helps you deconstruct your idea using twelve business modeling building blocks.
A Lean Canvas can describe a business model, a product release, or even a single feature, making it a highly popular business model innovation and product management tool used by millions worldwide.
If you have ever written a business plan or created a slide deck for investors, you’ll immediately recognize most of the building blocks on the canvas.
Lean Canvas helps you communicate your idea clearly and concisely to key stakeholders.
You can outline multiple business models on a Lean Canvas in one afternoon instead of writing a business plan, which can take several weeks or months. More importantly, a single-page business model is much easier to share with others, so it will be read by more people and updated more frequently.
Lean Canvas helps you systematically build and launch successful products.
When taking on a complex project, like, say, building a house, you wouldn’t start by putting up walls. You’d probably start with an architectural plan or blueprint — even if it’s just a sketch.
Building and launching an idea is no different.
Most entrepreneurs start with a strong initial vision and a Plan A to realize that vision. Unfortunately, most Plan As don’t work.
It has statistically been shown that two-thirds of successful startups report drastically changing (or pivoting) their plans along the way.
So, what separates successful startups then isn’t necessarily starting with a better initial plan (or Plan A) but finding a plan that works before running out of resources.
Until now, finding this better Plan B or C or Z has been based largely on gut, intuition, and luck. There has been no systematic process for rigorously stress testing a Plan A.
The first step to iterating your Plan A is gaining clarity on your Plan A.
This is what the Lean Canvas helps you do.
What is the difference between Lean Canvas and Business Model Canvas?
Lean Canvas was adapted from Alex Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas and optimized for the Lean Startup methodology.
The motivation behind Lean Canvas was creating a more founder-focused business modeling tool better suited for early-stage products.
It replaces these boxes on the Business Model Canvas: key partners, key resources, key activities, and customer relationships with these boxes: problem, solution, key metrics (KPIs), and unfair advantage (a defensible competitive advantage).
