Skip to content
Get in touch
  1. Home
  2. Insights
  3. The revenue lexicon
  4. Lean Canvas

Glossary

Lean Canvas

Subject areaRevenue and sales

The Lean Canvas is a one-page template that describes a business model in nine boxes, starting from the customer's problem: problem, customer segments, unique value proposition, solution, channels, revenue streams, cost structure, key metrics, unfair advantage.

Ash Maurya created it in 2010 by adapting Alexander Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas, and describes it in «Running Lean».

Compared with its parent model it moves the focus from the company to the market: the boxes on partners, activities, resources and relationships give way to problem, solution, metrics and advantage. That is why it works well as an alignment tool between marketing and sales, since it forces you to write in one line the problem being solved and the metric that says whether it is being solved.

Source: Ash Maurya, Running Lean, 2010.

An example

The sales director of a packaging manufacturer asks marketing and sales to fill in the Lean Canvas for a new line separately. The two sheets agree on channels and disagree on the customer's problem: that is where the discussion belongs, before the campaign.

cc$BY-NCEnrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com

Spotted an inaccuracy or something that needs updating? Write to info@enricogiubertoni.com and help make this glossary a better place.

What are your business challenges?

Tell us about your priorities and the objectives you want to reach.
You will receive a free, targeted answer within one working day.