It used to be that start-ups began with the “entrepreneur’s vision,” which was usually a highly product-centric idea for a company. Only much later--and after much agonizing--would the founder discover the idea itself didn’t amount to a complete business model.
That era in start-ups is over. Or at least it should be.
Using the Customer Development process along with the business model canvas first developed by Alexander Osterwalder, it’s possible to assemble a far more detailed version of your “vision” that includes the nine most important elements of any successful business (we’ll get to what those are below). With that in hand, you can validate your vision with the only possible “validators”--your potential customers. As customers applaud or pan elements of the business model, you iterate the model and pivot over time based on that feedback. The constantly updated business model becomes a “scorecard” for monitoring progress as you go through the Customer Discovery phase.
