Value Proposition Design: What Really Matters for your Customers

About five years after the international bestseller Business Model Generation, the authors around Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur will release a new book this fall: Value Proposition Design. It is based on the same concepts as Business Model Generation, however, as the name states, it will focus on the most important building block of the Business Model Canvas.

Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want

The heart of Value Proposition Design is about applying Tools to the messy Search for value propositions that customers want and then keeping them aligned with what customers want in Evolve. Value Proposition Design shows you how to use the Value Proposition Canvas to Design and Test great value propositions in an iterative search for ‘what customers want’. Value proposition design is a never-ending process in which you need to Evolve your value proposition(s) constantly to keep it relevant to customers.

The Value Proposition Canvas

The Value Proposition Canvas is a visual tool to make value propositions tangible and therefore easier to discuss and manage. It is like a plug-in tool to the Business Model Canvas and combines the Value Proposition (Value Map) and the Customer Segment (Customer Profile) building blocks.

Value Map

The Value (Proposition) Map describes the features a specific value proposition in your business model in a more structured and detailed way. It breaks your value proposition down into products and services, pain relievers, and gain creators.

Customer Profile

The Customer (Segment) Profile describes a specific customer segment in your business model in a more structured and detailed way. It breaks the customer down into its jobs, pains, and gains.

Achieve Fit

You achieve Fit when your value map meets your customer profile – when your products and services produce pain relievers and gain creators that match one or more of the jobs, pains, and gains that are important to your customer. What’s your customer value proposition? Design (or refine) it with the Value Proposition Canvas and other entrepreneurial tools.