TL;DR
Lean canvas has a lot of advantages compared to a traditional business plan document but there are three reasons why I think doing anything else at the beginning, is a waste of time.
Lean canvas for me, is an iterative tool. You need to apply it over and over.
This is what I use it for: Analyzing, dissecting and communicating my business idea and follow its evolution, identifying blind spots, identifying assumptions.
Some personal tips.
This is how the initial lean canvas for BARconWIFI.com looked like.

The problems with tradition business model documentation

A couple of years ago when some friends and I started the now defunct Social Fund It, one of the screw ups we did (among many), was to write down an almost 60 pages long business plan.

Isn't that what one is supposed to do, you ask? Well... Now, I don't think so.

Here are some of the reasons why I now think that was a total waste of time:

It was almost "all" fake: Most of the stuff that was supposed to be there, we didn't still have any data about it, so we just made it all up. The cash flows up to 5 years, the marketing strategy, the operations strategy, costs structures, etc. The only thing in that document that was not fake, was the team.

It took far too long to write and maintain: It took us about two weeks to write it, and once we did, we seriously couldn't be bothered with updating it often enough as for it to be of any use. Time is money, even more when you are an entrepreneur.

It took far to long to read: Be real, most people wont read your 10 lines email completely, so why on earth would they read 60 pages of... potentially boring stuff.

In a few words, it was a waste of time and resources with close to 0 return on investment.

The only reason that I would consider doing something like that again is, if its required to get funding and only if based on actual data.

There is another important point here. Although in general I believe it wasn't a good idea. It did get us thinking about the business instead just ignoring important details. However I now know there are better ways to "get myself thinking" about the important stuff and they don't involve hours in front of a Microsoft Word screen.

Enter the dragon

Now, one of the first things I do when I get an idea for a business, or when I am consulting with a client, is to ether write the idea down using the Lean Canvas tool or ask them to walk me through each of the points described in it.

I do this because it helps me decompose and analyse the business model behind the idea, into the pieces that I find the most important at the beginning of the process, fast.

This last part is particularly important. Lean canvas, or it's close relative the business model canvas are in essence a one page overview of your business model. One page you can write down an explain in just a few minutes.

But while small and laconic, I find that it focuses on the key aspects I want to understand and analyse about the business model and therefore, is a good exercise to prevent the idea from changing without noticing, while it is in my head, a way of getting it out there and pinning it to the table.

It also works beautifully when I want to communicate with others what is going through my mind.

Now, there is one catch I find when I talks to people who also use this tool or entrepreneurs who are starting their own thing and are trying this tool out. What I often hear is: "This is fine. I get it. I have done it before and I thought about it a lot, but it is still not helping me."

Well, I think they are missing an important point and that point is: What did you do as a result of what you learned using the tool, and how did that affect your initial canvas? If you answer is... nothing. Well.. you didn't use it right.



Lean Canvas is not supposed to be the tool that tells you what to do next or to help you track which assumptions you already validated. For that you have other tools, like the lean startup machine's validation board. Lean Canvas is more of a pair of goggles through which to look at your business from a different perspective.

In order for you to be able to extract the most value out of it, you need to ask yourself questions. Questions that stir the Martini you had in your mind about how things are supposed to work. Questions to show you what is really happening, out there. The lean canvas helps you finding these questions and then, by answering them, you can actually learn about your business.

To explain what I am trying to say here. If you look at your canvas and don't test the assumptions that you are making, you will not get the value you were aiming for. It will stay as it is, assumptions.

The only way that picture is going to change is, if you learn anything new about the reality you are trying to describe with it. Then, you can use the tool to analyse, learn and adapt based on what you learned. Rinse, and repeat. Build-measure-learn. Inspect and adapt. This mantra is as old as humanity itself and it didn't start with Customer Development or Lean Startup.

Personal do's and don'ts.

The first time you sit down and start filling up the canvas, chances are you are going to be making stuff up.

That is fine. If you feel like you are not sure about something you are putting on paper, well, that's a good sign. It is a sign telling you where you can start learning. So don't sweat it if you don't know everything on each aspect, that just means you are now aware of the stuff you know you don't know. But... don't stop there. Get out of the building and start learning.

Something that I see often also, is that, as masters of self deception that we are. We tend to avoid difficult questions. What do I mean by that?

Well, if we have a two sided market, we would start developing the canvas for one side, usually the one we know about, while the greatest potential risk is somewhere else... (in the part we don't know about!)

For instance, if we are creating a marketplace for handmade artistic products, and we know a lot of craftsmen/craftswomen it's easy to start thinking about getting them on board, and doing that canvas first, while neglecting to pay attention to the people looking for the crafted products, or vice versa.

But why does this happen? I think this happens because we feel bad about not knowing, so we avoid feeling uncomfortable. This is a big red flag. If you don't like reality hitting you in the face, don't use customer development or lean startup, or agile software development for that matter.

Somehow we have ingrained this idea that "If you build it... they will come". Do not engage on wishful thinking.



Last but not least. Don't forget about the questions. For me this tool is mostly about the questions. What I usually do once I am "comfortable" with what I wrote or while filling it in, is to make notes of which assumptions I am making.  I do that in form of questions. Once I have those assumptions, I can start exploring and finding out the answer.
Then, after you go out and learn something new, come back and revisit the canvas. Better yet, fill in another one and keep the previous as a measure of how the landscape has shifted. You can then start getting the most out of the tool, and then I'll believe you if you tell me it didn't work for you.

The BARconWIFI.com initial canvas.