Startup Business Model

Description

So, you’ve had your “a-ha”moment? You’ve come up with a great business idea, and you’re ready to start your business?

But, are you really?

For some, the question, “How will my business make money”, might be an obvious thing, however, most new businesses do not take this question seriously, and their businesses often fail because of it.

So, what is a startup business model?

Before you start your business, you need to create a business model, which is basically your road map to making money. In basic terms, your business model explains how you will make money. And no, a business model is not a business plan. You’ve even start writing a business plan until you’ve created a “blueprint”, for how you plan to succeed with a business model. Confused? Let’s take a closer look at why a business model is important.

Why create a startup business model?

Building a business is a lot like building a house and who can imagine a house built without preliminary sketches. You have a business idea and you will need to convert it into a business model. Creating a small business model means planning on paper the fundamentals of your business.

It helps you, as an entrepreneur, to put aside the excitement and make a realistic evaluation, of the potential success of your business idea. A proper business model helps you to figure out elements such as:

• Your business concept, what problem are you solving, and for whom
• How you will create customer value
• How your product or service will get to customers
• How your business will stay competitive
• Anticipate potential revenue and costs

How to create a startup business model?

The method we use to transfer our knowledge and experience is based on a combination of “Project-Based Learning” (PBL) and “Experiential eLearning” (EEL) which is the process of learning through experience, and is more specifically defined as learning through reflection on doing.

This method allows you to gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge, which is implemented to overcome the challenge and helps to develop critical thinking, problem solving, change management and implementation skills.

So, in this project you have the following tasks to complete to achieve the outcome below.

• Task 1 – Describe your value proposition, which you would present to your customer segments
• Task 2 – Identify your customer segments which you want to serve with your value proposition
• Task 3 – Define the channels you would use to reach your customer segments
• Task 4 – Define the type of relationships required for your customer segments
• Task 5 – Identify all the key business activities required to, deliver your value proposition successfully to your customer segments
• Task 6 – Identify the key resources required for all your business activities, to ensure that the value proposition reaches your customer segments successfully
• Task 7 – Identify key business partners to support you in reaching your customer segments effectively, in the areas where you have a weakness
• Task 8 – Identify the key costs of delivering your value proposition to your customer segments
• Task 9 – Identify all the revenue streams which you could potentially make money from

What is the outcome of this project?

Once you have completed the entire project, you have your startup business model ready to test initial capital investment interests or to proceed with a more detail business plan.

Project prerequisites

It is recommended that you complete the business / market research project before you proceed with this project.

What is next?

Once this project is complete, start with the writing of your startup strategic plan project to assist you in writing your business plan.