Lean Canvas: 1-page business plan (guide)

A business cannot do without a business plan. Whether you have your vision, mission, and goals in your head or actually described in detail, the Lean Canvas method will teach you how to work with them in a whole new way. Quickly, flexibly and, above all, with maximum clarity.

What is Lean Canvas?

We explain the Lean Canvas method in English as a business plan in a simplified format - clearly laid out in a table on a single page.

It is perfectly suited for budding entrepreneurs who need to sort out their ideas efficiently and move their business along at a brisk pace. The straightforwardness of the Lean Canvas model will be appreciated by start-ups as well as established companies that operate in a dynamic environment.

While a traditional business plan requires hours of in-depth analysis, setting strategies, goals and describing key categories, the Lean Canvas model can do this in much less time. It selects only the most important areas of the business plan. And it asks much more targeted questions.

How to create a Lean Canvas?

Creating a Lean Canvas is not complicated. The model works with 9 segments that are interconnected and naturally complement each other. Follow along with us step-by-step, answer the guiding questions and find out how to easily complete the Lean Canvas template:

Who is Lean Canvas suitable for?

Wondering if Lean Canvas is a good model to describe your business? You will appreciate this method when:

• You prefer speed of creation to hours of analysis and descriptions;
• you need to organize your initial thoughts and test your hypotheses on them;
• you have a vision in your head, but you are unable to translate it into concrete form;
• you need a clear and understandable document for your collaborators;
• you are in a dynamic business environment where you need to constantly react to change.

Lean Canvas vs. classic business plan

Naturally, the Lean Canvas model has a few drawbacks. You won't appreciate the simplicity of the template if:

• You need a more complex plan that goes into detail;
• you are in an established business where there is no need to constantly innovate and re-evaluate proven solutions;
• your pricing depends on detailed calculations that cannot be reflected in the template.

Evaluating the Lean Canvas method

Although the 9 segments described above may seem like a challenging warm-up, it is really a lightweight solution compared to the traditional business plan processing.

Instead of lengthy analyses and detailed strategies, the Lean Canvas model clearly defines the core areas of each project in bullet points. You can easily modify the entire plan at any time or quickly create other variations from it.

The great advantage of the Lean Canvas model is undoubtedly its overall customer orientation. Whereas in a traditional business plan companies often get bogged down in their own processes, production and setup, in Lean Canvas the client, their problem and your functional solution are the focus.

Last but not least, you will appreciate the logical interconnection of the different areas, which gives you a coherent yet concise overview.

Planning to start your own business?

Maybe you have an idea in your head but don't know exactly how to grasp it yet.

• Start with a situational analysis of the environment you want to enter with your idea.
• Continue by defining the vision, mission, values and goals of your business.
• And then move on to creating a classic business plan or use the Lean Canvas template above.

And then hooray for practice! We'll help you get your business off the ground formally. Don't worry about paperwork at the offices and order your company formation or trade license online.