The value proposition canvas

Alexander Osterwalder and colleagues · 2014

A structured way of checking that what you offer answers something the customer actually struggles with.

Its place in the frameworkBusiness Core›Value Proposition

What it does

It sets what customers are trying to do, what gets in the way and what they hope for on one side, and what the product does about each on the other, then asks where the two sides genuinely meet. Its work is in the honesty of the gaps — the pains nothing addresses, and the features nobody was in pain about.

Reach for it when: When a proposition has been written from the inside out and needs testing against a real customer situation.
Where it stops: It organises what you believe about the customer. Filled in from a meeting room it will feel rigorous and be entirely wrong.

Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda & Alan Smith, Value Proposition Design, Wiley, 2014.

Why it sits at Value Proposition

What the organisation offers, stated in terms of what it does for someone. A value proposition is a claim about the customer, not a description of the product.

A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:

Customer jobs and painsChristensen’s jobs-to-be-done framing, and the customer-profile half of the Value Proposition Canvas.
The offerOsterwalder’s Value Proposition Canvas, where pain relievers and gain creators are matched to the customer profile.
DifferentiationPorter on competitive positioning, and the standard test of substituting a rival’s name into the statement.
ProofWork on buyer risk and evidence in complex sales; the harder the claim, the more the proof carries.

All of Value Proposition

What it touches elsewhere

Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Value Proposition lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.

Market CoreThe target audience defines whose jobs and pains the proposition addresses.
Brand CoreThe brand promise is the proposition made external and repeatable.
Omni CoreThe journey is where the proposition is either delivered or contradicted.
Goal CoreA change of proposition is a strategic goal, not a marketing task.

Filed at the same place

These answer questions that arise at Value Proposition too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.

Jobs to be donePeople do not buy products; they hire something to make progress in a situation.
The Kano modelSome features delight, some merely satisfy in proportion, and some are only noticed when they are missing.
The Lean StartupTreat a new offer as a set of assumptions to be tested cheaply, rather than a plan to be executed.
Design thinkingUnderstand the person’s situation before defining the problem, and prototype the answer before committing to it.

Elsewhere in Business Core

These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.

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