The Process
2 Craft your value proposition
3 Define a business model
4 Specify Go-to-market strategy
5 Identify and test hypotheses
6 Build an MVP
7 Launch, grow and improve
Introduction
In the first step of the Venture Building Process, you identified a significant problem that you are motivated to solve. Importantly, you validated the existence of this problem by talking to potential customers.
2.1 Create a persona to define your target customer
To start, you must define your target customer. Attempting to develop a solution for everyone will only diffuse your efforts and result in a mediocre solution.
- How do you define your customer in a few words?
- What is your customer's main goal?
- How does your customer currently achieve this goal?
- What problems does your customer face when trying to achieve its goal?
As your business evolves, your persona will become more detailed. For example, below is a well-developed persona for illustration purposes.
At this stage of the Venture Building Process, it is important to develop a persona to define your value proposition. Moreover, this persona will help create a common understanding of your customers among your team and support decision-making around strategy, communication, and product development as your business grows.
2.2 Craft your value proposition
Now that you have a better understanding of your customers, it's time to define the solution that will help them solve their problems.
To do so, we will use a well-established framework called the Value Proposition Canvas. This methodology was created by Strategyzer, a highly established company operating in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation. It will help you create a solution that is positioned around your customer’s needs.
The Canvas is divided into two parts: the customer profile and the value map, with additional elements in each part. The customer profile includes customer jobs, pains, and gains, while the value proposition includes products & services, pain relievers, and gain creators.
The Value Proposition Canvas
Customer Profile
The Customer Profile explains the jobs your customer is performing in order to achieve a certain goal, as well as the pains and the gains the person experiences in that process.
Customer Jobs
The Customer Jobs describe all the tasks your customer needs to perform in order to achieve their main goal (the one you have defined in the persona). Such customer jobs can come in different forms:
- Functional jobs
- Social jobs
- Emotional jobs
When your customer performs or completes a specific task or solves a specific problem.
When your customer wants to look good or gain power or status.
When your customer seeks a specific emotional state.
Pains
Pains describe anything that annoys or prevents your customer from getting a job done. They also represent risks, that is, potential bad outcomes related to the Customer Jobs.
Gains
Gains describe the benefits and the outcomes your customers want. Some gains are required, expected, or desired by customers, and some would simply surprise them.
Value Map
The Value Map illustrates the value proposition of your business, as it states the products and services you provide, how they solve your customer’s problems and the benefits they create when doing so.
Products and services
This section lists all the products, services and features you intend to provide.
Pain relievers
Pain relievers describe how your products and services can reduce or eliminate the pains your customer cares about.
Gain creators
Gain creators describe how you increase or maximise the benefits that are important to your customer.
How to Use the Value Proposition Canvas
On the other side, ask yourself which product or service can help your customers achieve their goals while relieving their biggest pains and creating substantial gains.
This is a creative process, that should help you conclude what product or service you could provide based on your customers’ needs.
If you have multiple products and services that can equally solve your customers' problems, choose the one that is most feasible to execute and has the most viable business model. The latter will be refined in the next step, but having an idea of how you will generate revenues certainly helps.
Below you see how I used the Value Proposition Canvas to structure my thoughts and define a first draft of a potential solution of Venture Bloom.
Finding the right fit between the Customer Profile and the Value Map is an ongoing process. The more you learn about your customers, the better you understand their needs. Therefore, continue to use this framework as you move ahead to structure your thoughts and findings.
If you feel that you lack understanding about your customers, go back to step 1 and conduct more research, and have more conversations to refine your Customer Profile.
2.4 Develop your Value Proposition Statement
The Value Proposition Canvas helps you brainstorm different products or services that center around your customers' needs. As a result of this process, you should have identified a specific product or service that helps your customers achieve their goals while addressing some of their biggest pains and creating valuable gains.
Next, we want to summarize your findings in a Value Proposition Statement, which helps you structure your thoughts so that your customers understand your offering and the value it brings to them. The statement consists of the following three parts:
Tagline
Write one compelling sentence describing the major benefit your product or service is providing with at least as words as possible. This is not a description of your solution that describes how those benefits are being achieved.
Value proposition
Write down your entire value proposition using the following structure:
My (products and services) help (my target customer) to (customer jobs) by (secret sauce).
"The secret sauce" can refer to a major problem you solve, a significant benefit you provide, or a unique insight you possess. Ultimately, it describes how you differ from your competitors.
Benefits
Create a list with the key benefits you are creating, hence the major pains you relieve, or the major gains that you create.
Creating the Value Proposition Statement is an ongoing process. Keep refining it as you gain a better understanding of your customers and the market.
As shown in the example below, the main benefit of this statement is its ability to distill the essence of your value proposition into a well-structured and easy-to-understand format.
Successfully launch your business.
The Venture Building Masterclass (product or service) empowers aspiring entrepreneurs (target customer) to successfully launch a business (customer job) by following a straightforward process based on best practices in entrepreneurship.
- Learn all you need about entrepreneurship
- Increase chances of success by 10 times
- Launch with almost 0 capital
2.4 Draw conclusions
As with the end of the previous chapter, it is time to zoom out and draw conclusions regarding the work you have done.
Do you have at least medium confidence in your identification of a product or service that can solve major pains and create significant gains for your target customer?
If yes, complement the 10 Building Blocks of a Business with your results. If no, you may need to continue developing your value proposition and conducting user interviews.
10 Building Blocks | Your Business | Confidence (low, medium, high) |
Problem | What problem is your business solving? | |
Solution | Who is your customer and how do you solve their problems? | |
Unique insight | Why is it you succeeding? | |
Business model | How will you make money? | |
Market size | Is the market you conquer large enough? | |
Competition | Who are your competitors and how do you differ? | |
Financials | Do the unit economics and the financial case make sense? | |
Go-to-market | How will you grow? | |
Traction | Do you have proof that your business is succeeding? | |
Team | Are you the right team to run the business? |
As you see, the picture of your business starts becoming sharper with every step. Next, we will define how you will generate revenues and whether the financials of your business make sense.
10 Building Blocks | Your Business | Confidence (low, medium, high) |
Problem | Launching a business
- Fear of failure (17%)
- Lack of entrepreneurial skills (14%)
- Insufficient capital to start a business (14%)
- The comfort of security and receiving a salary (9%)
- Not having the right business idea (8%)
| High |
Solution | 1) Persona
- Aspiring entrepreneur
- Primary goal is to launch a startup or small online business
- In doing so the person dreams to
a) make lots of money
b) enjoy entrepreneurial freedom (working time & place, own boss)
c) working on something meaningful
- Currently not able to get the business of the ground
- Problems:
a) Fear of failure (17%)
b) Lack of entrepreneurial skills (14%)
c) Insufficient capital to start a business (14%)
d) The comfort of security and receiving a salary (9%)
e) Not having the right business idea (8%)
2) Value Propisition
Venture Building for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Successfully launch any business by following a proven process based on best practices in entrepreneurship.
- Increase chances of success by 10 times
- Reduce costs of starting up to almost 0
- Launch alongside your day job
- No business idea needed
3) Solution
- Boook
- Online course
- Venture Builder & VC
| Medium - High |
Unique insight | - Venture Building
- Experience as an entrepreneur
- Inspirational speaker | High |
Business model | - Online course | High |
Market size | - 1 Million searches about how to launch a startup per month
- TAM at a course price of USD 500 and 10 Million potential clients = USD 5 Billion | High |
Competition | - Free startup school from Y-Combinator
- Other online courses about launching a business
Differentiator:
- Venture Building Methodology (step-by-step process)
- Ability to use the methodology for any business | Medium |
Financials | Online course for USD 750
CAC in the industry around USD 250
Lifetime value = USD 500 | High |
Go-to-market | Pre-launch
- Writing the book to establish brand and credibility
- Sharing chapters of the book on social media as soon as they are finished
- Asking community for feedback on the content
- Building up mailing list with free book chapters
- Writing some articles on high authority websites
Launch
- Mailing list
- Performance marketing on Youtube and Google | Low - Medium |
Traction | Goals:
- 1 chapter per month
- Book by end of 2023
- 140 subscribers by end of 2023 (20 subscribers per chapter) | Medium |
Team | - Ability to develop and market the product myself | High |
Contact