Lean Canvas Template

About the Lean Canvas template

The Lean Canvas Template helps you quickly build a business plan without the complexity usually involved in business plan templates. It’s a practical and concise way to present your business idea.

What is a Lean Canvas?

A Lean Canvas is a 1-page business plan invented by Ash Maurya to provide a more straightforward business opportunity evaluation. It’s a simplified version of the business model canvas template and helps your team break down your idea into key assumptions, replacing cumbersome, time-consuming business plans.

Benefits of the Lean Canvas Template

A Lean Canvas is an easy way to brainstorm the various factors in determining the potential profitability of a business model.

Easy to complete

One of the significant advantages of the Lean Canvas Template is that it’s very simple and low-cost to create one, unlike many other business tools. The most important thing is that you bring in all the relevant parties in your business to inform each canvas step.

A high-level overview of your business

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day minutia of running a business and lose sight of the overall picture and goals. A Lean Canvas Template keeps you focused on overall strategy and potential threats and opportunities to your business.

Incorporates internal and external factors

The Lean Canvas Template explores the internal strengths of your business and potential external threats and factors that may affect profitability. Then, you can use it to improve and update internal processes according to external factors.

How to use the Lean Canvas Template

The Lean Canvas Template consists of boxes you must fill out to complete the plan. Go through each prompt in turn, doing your best to articulate the answers in a simple, straightforward way. Don’t be afraid to iterate on your Lean Canvas.

Begin by selecting this Lean Canvas Template. You can edit any of these sections, changing them as necessary. You can fill the blocks with sticky notes, links, and other file types such as photos, videos, and PDFs. Share your board with others and invite them to collaborate with you.

In the Lean Canvas Template, you will find:

In the first row:

Problem

The questions you should ask:

• What problem does your product or service seek to solve?

• How common is this problem, how many people have it?

• How much would people be willing to pay to fix this problem?

Solution

• What top three features does your product or service have that work toward solving the problem?

Describe what makes your business innovative and creative inside your field or industry.

Unique value proposition

• What are you bringing to the table that your competition is not?

• How many competitors in this space are there, and what can you do to separate your business from theirs?

Unfair advantage

• How can you ensure people will not copy your product?

• What steps are you taking to maintain a competitive advantage?

Customer segments

• Who are your prospects, and how do they connect to the problem?

In this step, you should identify specific personas among your potential customer base, how they perceive the problem you’re solving, and the unique value prop you can offer.

In the second row:

Existing alternatives

• Are there any products or services which solve your business problem?

• What are the current solutions available today?

Map out your competitor’s landscape and how people are currently adopting or not their solutions.

Key metrics

• What indicators can you use to determine whether your product or service is working correctly and your business is succeeding?

Your key metrics can be a mix of engagement statistics, revenue, and customer satisfaction scores.

High-level concept:

Explain your idea in a very simple X for Y analogy (e.g., “Vegan meat options for vegans”).

Channels

• What paths do you need to take to reach customers?

Understanding your customer segments is critical to informing this step. Know where your audience is, and how to reach them. It can be over social media, content marketing, billboards, etc.

Early adopters:

Here is where you describe your ideal customer and who will adopt your product or service right away. They might help with spreading the word.

In the bottom row:

Cost structure

List all operational costs here.

• What is the cost of customer acquisition?

• What about distribution cost?

Identify key partners in your venture and look up costs of potential suppliers or manufacturers, shipping, and other logistical partners to get at the true cost of operating.

Revenue streams

• What is your revenue model?

• Gross margins?

• The lifetime value of your product or service?

Make sure not just to model how much you will earn initially but recurring revenue and how much value you expect from each customer over time.

How to review your Lean Canvas

Step back and consider everything you’ve mapped, and share with your team for alignment.

Use all of this information to spot your business’s weaknesses and strengths and hone in on your overall strategy.

Remember, the biggest difference between the Business Model Canvas and the Lean Canvas is that the first focuses on a specific product while the latter focuses on a specific problem.