Don't start your startup without a Lean Canvas

Don't start your startup...

without doing a Lean Canvas: an essential tool today to ask yourself the right questions, not always easy ones, about your idea.

Reshared from Alexandre Beauchet (Draft.io):

Everything starts with a draft…

That was a slogan idea we had a few years ago. We dropped it, and yet it captured quite well the idea that the processes of thinking and creating are set off by picking up a sheet of paper and a pen.

We are going back to our roots by encouraging the birth of new projects on Draft.io: the Lean Canvas gives entrepreneurs an iterative, learning-based approach to formalise a new business idea.

With the help of Franck Debane, innovation and entrepreneurship expert and author of the book “Passez en mode startup”, we explain in detail how to get the most out of this tool. (link to the article in the comments)

As a teaser, here are Franck’s tips for using the Lean Canvas in your projects:

- Fill it in quickly, in 30 minutes to 1 hour at most, and keep in mind that what you write in the different boxes is probably wrong. They are only hypotheses, that is, what you believe to be true for now. You then need to test these hypotheses systematically, using the "Build-Measure-Learn” feedback loop.

- The Lean Canvas is a living document that you update as your project moves forward. When you pivot, you change the hypotheses of your plan; you need to update your canvas.

You can use this template on Draft.io, for free, with your whole team.

Many thanks to Franck for this collaboration.

Image from Alexandre Beauchet's post (Draft.io).

Lean Startup Canvas - Example

The post shares a Draft.io page on the Lean Canvas, written with Franck. It presents the nine boxes of Ash Maurya's canvas in the order you fill them in, and two tips from Franck: don't spend more than thirty minutes to an hour on it, because each box is only a hypothesis to test in the build, measure, learn loop; and keep it up to date as a living document that changes with every pivot.

Source: Draft.io