Framework library · Marketing strategy

Value Proposition Canvas

The Value Proposition Canvas, published by Alexander Osterwalder and colleagues, sets what an offer does beside what a customer is trying to get done, the pains in the way and the gains they want. The workbench here is Blue Prysm's own. It lists each need with how much it matters and what the customer does about it today, records what in the offer answers it and how fully, and turns that into a fit score weighted by importance, so the gaps that matter most show before anything more is built.

LevelFoundational
TimeTwo hours for a first draft, then weeks of customer interviews to test it
Who to involveProduct, a commercial lead and people who talk to the segment every week, ideally with a customer or two as well.
Also calledVPC, value proposition design, customer profile and value map, Strategyzer value proposition canvas

Use it when

  • You are designing a new product or service and want to check it against what one customer segment needs before you build it.
  • An existing offer sells less than expected and you want to see which of the customer's jobs, pains or gains it misses.
  • Sales and product describe the offer's value differently and need one view of it, tied to the customer.

Avoid it when

  • You plan to fill in one profile for several segments. Make one canvas per segment, or the pains and gains blur into an average.
  • You need the economics or the operating model. Use the Business Model Canvas or unit economics for those.
  • The profile would be written from the team's assumptions with no plan to test them. That produces a list of hopes. Plan the customer interviews first.

How to run it

  1. Pick one customer group

    Name a group specific enough to interview: "network planning teams at regional mobile operators", not "operators".

  2. List the needs before the offer

    Write the jobs the customer is trying to get done, the problems that cost, slow or worry them, and the outcomes they want. Rate each from 1 to 5 by how much it matters to them, and note what they do about it today.

  3. Answer each need from the offer

    For each need, write what in the offer answers it, in terms of what changes for the customer, and mark whether it answers it fully, partly or not at all.

  4. Read the fit score and the gaps

    The score is the share of what matters, weighted by importance, that the offer meets. Needs rated 4 or 5 that the offer does not answer are the gaps to close first.

  5. Find the waste and the tests

    In the second part, list anything in the offer that answers no need on the list, and the two or three assumptions that would most change the design if wrong, with how you will test each with customers.

Work through it

Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.

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Mistakes to avoid

  • Starting with the offer. Teams that describe their product first go on to find needs it happens to meet, and miss the ones it does not.
  • Listing every possible need without rating them. Fit only counts on the needs customers care most about, and an unrated list makes every gap look equal.
  • Writing answers as features ("5G ready") rather than what changes for the customer ("no second site visit to upgrade"), which hides whether the need is met.
  • Treating the finished score as evidence. It records assumptions until customers confirm them, and a design built on it can still miss.

Where it comes from

Alexander Osterwalder introduced the canvas in "Achieve Product-Market Fit with our Brand-New Value Proposition Designer Canvas", Strategyzer blog, August 2012, and set it out with Yves Pigneur, Greg Bernarda and Alan Smith in Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (Wiley, 2014). Source.

The Value Proposition Canvas is the work of Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Greg Bernarda and Alan Smith, published by Strategyzer AG. This workbench is Blue Prysm's own design, built from the published idea. It does not reproduce the canvas and is not endorsed by Strategyzer.

Use it with

Further reading

Work through it with us

The frameworks here are free to use as they stand. If you would rather work through the question behind this one with us, these are the ways an engagement starts.