Product Inception Canvas

Want an easy tool to help you start building great products that people love?

That’s exactly what the Product Inception Canvas is: a practical worksheet to help you, your business people, your stakeholders, and everyone else on your team discover exactly what to do next as you build and extend your product.

The Product Inception Canvas facilitates alignment among business people, product development teams, and stakeholders. We begin by identifying, discussing, and aligning on our company vision and product vision: Who are we? Why do we exist? How will the world be different and better because of the work we are doing? Next, we identify stakeholders and bring them to life as user personas: Who cares about the work we are doing? Who are they, really, including all their details? Finally, we put it all together into a product backlog—an ordered to-do list of everything we want to be true about our product in the future: What are the wants and needs of our stakeholders? What problems will we solve for them? Which problems should we solve first to maximize their joy?