When thinking about your new startup business (no matter how small), you'll often wonder how it will be organized. The most efficient way to think about all these pieces is with a business model - a business model is the way in which your company creates value for itself while delivering products or services for its customers.

While we won't explore all the boxes of the business model canvas, but this Step-by-Step Guide will serve more as a practical, action oriented blueprint to help you get out of the house and practice customer development, all while building and refining your business model canvas.

What is a business model canvas? It's a 1-Sheet view of your business; an easy to start, easy to complete, easy to update, and easy to communicate tool you will use to keep things simple and more effective. Do it on paper or online (see Actions below to get yours)

What Does Your Business Model Look Like?

A business model is how your company will create value for itself while delivering products or services to it's customers. It's not an org chart, but it is about 9key pieces:

1. The Value Proposition: What pain are you solving? What gain are you creating? Who are you solving it for?
   
2. Customer Segments: Who are they? Why do they need you? What are their demographics? What's their persona (you'll learn more about these later)?
   
3. Distribution channels: How does your product get to your customers?
   
4. Customer Relationships: How do I get customers (acquire)? How do I keep them (activate them)? And how do I grow them (retain and up-sell)?
   
5. Revenue Streams: How do I actually make money from my customers? What value do is the customer paying for? What's the strategy for capturing that value? What's the revenue model?
   
6. Key Resources: What assets/key resources are important to my business model?
   
7. Key Partners & Suppliers: What exactly am I acquiring from my partners and when are they going to preform those actions?
   
8. Key Activities: What are the most important activities I must complete to make my business model succeed?
   
9. Costs: What are the costs and expenses to operate my business model?
   

Lesson 1: The Difference Between ME and MY STARTUP COMPANY