I’m currently coaching 16 MBA teams in an entrepreneurship competition. I’ve been teaching them to use Lean Canvas and lean principals to build their business cases and ultimately their businesses. Here are 3 principal insights that I use to help my students move from “why do we have to fill-out this stupid chart…” to “wow, this is powerful…”
- Lean Canvas forces us to accept that ideas are built on a foundation of assumptions (or hypotheses) that change over time based on new information. It allows us to recognize the interconnectedness of changing assumptions by providing a framework to analyze how changes in one area, such as who are target customers are, will impact other areas, such as our Value Proposition. In other words, it allows us to constructively use new information
- Lean Canvas allows us to track what we’ve learned and how we’ve adapted to new information. It shows our progress. It helps us build confidence in our core storylines. It brings discipline to getting market feedback
- Lean Canvas gives us a great platform for communicating among ourselves and with outside stakeholders. It provides the basis for communicating both where we are and what we’ve learned. In other words, it allows us to separate the signals from the noise to gain alignment, demonstrate progress and use constructive feedback