Startup Canvas Template
Identify your new business idea's strengths and weaknesses and gather information in one place.
About the Startup Canvas Template
Startup canvases are a useful visual map for founders who want to judge their new business idea’s strengths and weaknesses.
By articulating factors like success, viability, vision, and value to the customer, founders can make a concise case for why a new product or service should exist and get funded.
Need a canvas that helps you map out the profitability of your startup idea? That sounds like a Lean Canvas. If you have an existing business model you’d like to visualize, try out the Business Model Canvas.
What is a startup canvas?
A startup canvas helps founders express and map out a new business idea in a less formal format than a traditional business plan.
This canvas can be used as a framework to quickly articulate your business idea’s value proposition, problem, solution, market, team, marketing channels, customer segment, external risks, and key performance indicators.
Create your own startup canvas
Get started by selecting the startup canvas template, then take the following steps to make one of your own:
1. Name your business and confirm your team
Even if you haven’t registered a business name yet, the company name segment can be a space to brainstorm what you’ll call your new venture. Assemble the name of your dream team and on the details with you too.
2. Fill in each customer-related segment
From what your company stands for to your vision, values, each piece will help clarify your idea. Use each “statement” to start drafting key points based on understanding your customer’s key problems – and how your business idea offers a genuine solution.
3. Add at least two to three points for each customer-related segment
Each segment can contain at least three relevant ideas. For example, what are three market research insights or statistics that prove your business idea’s viability?
4. Check the confidence of your language
A startup canvas helps you turn broad ideas into a research-backed concept. Use clear, concise language instead of hedging statements (such as “but” or “however”). Your goal is to turn unaware investors into engaged business prospects.
5. Share the canvas with your team
After you’ve filled in all the segments, share the filled-in startup canvas template with team members or potential investors to get feedback and keep refining your business idea.
Get started with this template right now.
Business Model Canvas Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Agile Methodology, Strategic Planning
Your business model: Nothing is more fundamental to who you are, what you create and sell, or ultimately whether or not you succeed. Using nine key building blocks (representing nine core business elements), a BMC gives you a highly usable strategic tool to develop and display your business model. What makes this template great for your team? It’s quick and easy to use, it keeps your value proposition front and center, and it creates a space to inspire ideation.
Lean Canvas Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Strategic Planning, Agile Workflows
Business opportunities can get dense, cumbersome, and complex, and evaluating them can be a real challenge. Let a lean canvas streamline things and break down your business idea for you and your team. A great tool or entrepreneurs and emerging businesses, this one-page business model gives you an easy, high-level view of your idea — so you can stay focused on overall strategy, identify potential threats and opportunities, and brainstorm the various factors at play in determining your potential profitability in an industry.
App Development Canvas Template
Works best for:
Market Research, Product Management, User Experience
Ever noticed that building a successful app requires lots of players and moving parts? If you’re a project manager, you definitely have. Lucky for you, an app development canvas will let you own and optimize the entire process. It features 18 boxes, each one focusing on a key aspect of app development, giving you a big-picture view. That way you can fine-tune processes and get ahead of potential problems along the way—resulting in a smoother path and a better, tighter product.