How to use a lean canvas to start and market a business fast
- Alberto Carniel
- Feb 5, 2020
- 12 min read
Updated: Dec 31, 2025
Many consultancy firms state that you need a business plan to start your own company.
This is not true.
If you don’t have a lot of money to finance your business, you need to monetize fast — and a business plan often slows you down.
In this article, you will learn how to start a business with a lean canvas, market your product or service even before it’s actually available, and pivot swiftly when it doesn’t hit the target response from the market.
Table of contents
A BUSINESS PLAN IS OBSOLETE
Most entrepreneurs don’t have huge capital to fund their business.
That’s why they must earn profits as soon as possible.
The only way to do that is to shorten time-to-market and validate a product/service fast.
A business plan is often obsolete, because it postpones a company’s time-to-market.
Entrepreneur defines a business plan as:
“A written document describing the nature of the business, the sales and marketing strategy, and the financial background, and containing a projected profit and loss statement.”
That’s a lot of work.
And in the earliest stages, this kind of document drains precious resources (time + money) while the chances it’s precise are… optimistic, at best.
As I always say: a strategy becomes successful only if it meets expectations after being tested.
According to a CB Insights study, the number one reason startups fail is no market need (42%), and the second reason is running out of cash (29%).
So yes: marketing a product or service fast is fundamental to understand the market’s needs and, if needed, pivot before your runway turns into a free fall.
So, how can you start and market a business fast?
You apply a lean startup approach.
THE LEAN STARTUP METHODOLOGY
Before learning how to use (and fill) a lean canvas, you need to understand what you’re really leveraging here: lean startup.
What does lean startup mean?
Lean startup is a methodology to validate a business model by shortening time-to-market (or the development cycle).
A lean startup approach focuses on the needs of early consumers.
Early consumers, or early adopters, represent your ideal buyers: the people ready to purchase new products or services before they become mainstream.
According to Eric Ries (The Lean Startup, 2011):
“A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”
This means “startup” is not equal to “company.”
A department inside a large corporation can operate like a startup if it’s building and testing something new under uncertain conditions.
In Ries’s definition, there’s no reference to team size or years in business.
The only important element is uncertainty.
And uncertainty can only be reduced by studying the interaction between a new product/service and its early adopters.
How can you do that?
With an MVP.
Develop your Minimum Viable Product first
Minimum viable product (MVP) is a term coined in 2001 by Frank Robinson (SyncDev), and then popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries.
According to Ries, a minimum viable product is:
“A new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
In other words, an MVP is a product or service with a basic set of features — enough to catch the attention of early adopters and collect intel on their expectations.
It allows a business to:
Shorten the development cycle;
Test demand before launching a full version;
Cooperate with customers to improve the product/service;
Pivot in the earliest stages of development.
To be even more pragmatic: an MVP is your fundamental business hypothesis made real.
For example, the founder of Zappos, Nick Swinmurn, wanted to test the hypothesis that people were ready and willing to buy shoes online.
Instead of building a full-fledged ecommerce site with a huge database, he approached offline stores, took pictures of their shoes, posted them online, and paid the stores full price every time he made a sale — then shipped the shoes to customers.
Those sales showed real demand.
Only then did he commit to the business model.
This story is appealing because it makes validation look simple: you test, it works, you win.
In reality, the MVP is only the beginning of a series of iterations and processes that lead to validating a business model.
So how can you test an MVP fast and decide whether to pivot or not?
The best tool to do so is the lean canvas.
HOW TO CRAFT A LEAN CANVAS
A lean canvas (sometimes also called a validation board) is a tool to validate ideas through experimentation.
Lean canvas was invented by Ash Maurya (Leanstack) to summarize in one page the customer-problem-solution paradigm.
This visual chart doesn’t only guide entrepreneurs: it’s also useful for internal and external stakeholders.
Maurya describes Lean Canvas as:
“The faster, more effective way to communicate your business model with internal and external stakeholders.”
Download my free lean canvas template and market your MVP like a boss.
Now let’s break down the boxes.
Problem
The purpose of a business is to create value and monetize it.
But if you don’t know what problem you’re solving… what exactly are you monetizing?
According to Maurya, a lack of problem understanding is one of the major causes of startup failure.
In the Problem box: list up to 3 problems your startup wants to solve.
In the section below (Existing Alternatives): list the alternatives people already use to solve (or work around) those problems.
Solution
Once the problem is clear, you come up with a solution.
The Solution box is small on purpose: it forces you to align with the MVP concept.
Also, don’t fall in love with the first solution you come across.
Love is great — but not when it makes you blind.
Maurya aligns with many other entrepreneurs.
For example, during Philly Tech Week in 2017, I interviewed the CEO of OpenForge, Jedidiah Weller, about lean startup and design thinking.
He promptly said:
“The goal of a start-up is to find a solution.”
Key metrics
The only way to decrease uncertainty is to measure progress and make reliable projections.
The issue is that many founders struggle to keep up with the numbers — and most of them do it wrong because they either:
Focus on the wrong metrics, or
Track too many metrics at once.
Noah Kagan said:
“A startup can only focus on one metric. So you have to decide what that is and ignore everything else.”
Failing to identify the right metrics can ruin a startup.
In Key Metrics, list the numbers that tell you if you’re winning or losing.
A lean canvas is as dynamic as the data in it.
Your metrics should change based on the stage you’re in.
Ries also highlights the distinction between actionable metrics and vanity metrics:
Actionable metrics show what’s really happening.
Vanity metrics look good on slides… and do nothing for survival.
Example: if you sell shoes online, you can’t rely only on pageviews.
Pageviews don’t pay your bills.
But if you run an online magazine monetized with ads, pageviews can be a real metric because they drive revenue.
Value proposition
In the Value Proposition box, list the products or services your startup offers to meet the needs and wants of your target audience.
A value proposition is:
A promise of value to be delivered. A single, clear, compelling message that states why you are different and worth paying attention to.
It usually answers:
What value do we deliver to the customer?
Which customer problem are we helping to solve?
What bundles of products/services are we offering to each segment?
Which customer needs are we satisfying?
Value can be created through elements like:
Newness
Performance
Customization
Getting the job done
Design
Brand / Status
Price
Cost reduction
Risk reduction
Accessibility
Convenience / usability
In the section below (High-Level Concept), describe your solution with analogies.
Sometimes startups are so innovative they become difficult to comprehend — and if people don’t get it, they don’t buy it.
For instance, when YouTube was born, they associated it with Flickr: Flickr for videos.
Use the X for Y analogy to simplify your message.
Unfair advantage
The Unfair Advantage box is for something that cannot easily be bought or copied.
Many startups don’t have one — that’s why they must work hard to fill this space.
If a startup is successful but doesn’t have an unfair advantage, copycats will show up and push it out of business.
Customer segments
The Customer Segments box is for target customers and users.
List the groups of consumers you want to serve.
And if you need help figuring out your best audience, read my article on market segmentation.
In brief, to find your market segment, ask yourself:
For whom are we creating value?
Who are our most important customers?
The section below (Early Adopters) is for your buyer persona.
Describe your ideal customer.
Early adopters will be your first niche of buyers.
They’re the spark that ignites your money machine — and they will help you validate and improve your product/service.
Channels
List in Channels your path to customers (inbound or outbound).
This is where you map how you’ll deliver your message, value, product, and service.
You can rely on partners (like wholesale channels), or build your own route through social media, SEO, newsletters, paid ads, and so on.
Usually, a multi-channel approach is preferred — mixing owned and third-party channels.
To find your channels, answer:
Through which channels do our customer segments want to be reached?
How are we reaching them now?
How are our channels integrated?
Which ones work best?
Which ones are most cost-efficient?
How are we integrating them with customer routines?
Each channel has its own lifecycle, and your marketing must match it:
Awareness: How do we raise awareness?
Evaluation: How do we allow customers to evaluate and buy?
Delivery: How do we deliver the value proposition?
After sales: How do we provide support post-purchase?
Cost structure
The Cost Structure box lists fixed and variable costs.
It answers:
What are the most important costs inherent to our business model?
Which key resources are most expensive?
Which key activities are most expensive?
Cost structure determines the business setup.
For example, it can be:
Cost-driven: focused on minimizing costs and removing frills (leanest cost structure, low-price value proposition, automation, outsourcing).
Value-driven: focused more on value creation than cost optimization (premium value proposition). High-end brands like Prada or Rolex typically follow this approach.
Characteristics of cost structure can be:
Fixed costs: don’t vary with production output (rent, utilities, etc.).
Variable costs: vary with production output (raw materials, some labor, etc.).
Economies of scale: as production increases, costs decrease.
Example: if you sell a recorded online class, you can scale clients without scaling production costs (platform fees aside).
Economies of scope: cost advantages from offering a variety of products/services under the same operational system.
Revenue streams
In Revenue Streams, list all the possible ways to earn money from each customer segment.
To find revenue streams, answer:
For what value are our customers really willing to pay?
For what do they currently pay?
How are they currently paying?
How would they prefer to pay?
How much does each revenue stream contribute to overall revenues?
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A LEAN CANVAS
AND BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
Maurya modified and adapted the Business Model Canvas outlined by Alexander Osterwalder in his PhD thesis (The Business Model Ontology, University of Lausanne, 2004).
A business model canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool to develop new business models or document existing ones.
Download my free business model canvas and get your marketing strategy done.
The main difference between business model canvas and lean canvas is that lean canvas takes for granted that value creation is a prerequisite to value capture.
If you don’t understand your customers’ problem first, you can’t credibly describe how you create value.
That’s why the paradigm shift is the Problem box.
Entrepreneurs typically don’t have a lot of resources to start a business and must rely on problem-solving skills to make something out of nothing.
So lean canvas starts with Problem.
If the problem is worth solving, entrepreneurs find (or create) the resources to build a solution.
In other words, the entrepreneurial approach of lean canvas makes product and business model tightly connected.
A business model canvas, instead, is often more useful for a strategic conversation with business stakeholders — especially when the context is less chaotic and more about alignment and planning.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT A LEAN CANVAS IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
A common criticism of lean startup targets its core: the MVP.
An MVP might not match the quality standards expected by customers, leading to:
A drop in brand esteem before the business takes off;
A strategic advantage for competitors who enter with superior features/value.
So, how can you implement a lean canvas in your marketing strategy and dodge these threats?
Pilot experiment
The first element to include is a pilot experiment (also called pilot study or pilot test).
Apply the lean canvas to a selected and limited public.
That way, you don’t burn your brand reputation with the entire market if the MVP doesn’t work out.
Pilot studies are used in other fields too, including medical science.
For example, BMC Medical Research Methodology published A tutorial on pilot studies: the what, why and how (2010), explaining how pilot tests help evaluate feasibility, costs, risks, and gather data for improvements.
In our marketing context, the “research project” is the MVP.
Example: Dropbox.
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi launched Dropbox in 2007 even before they had the technology fully ready for everyone.
They ran a pilot test on Digg with a landing page and a simple explainer video to showcase the concept.
Houston later described how tailoring the video to that audience (with inside jokes and references) helped trigger a massive spike in interest — with the beta waitlist jumping from 5,000 to 75,000 “literally overnight.”
Build-measure-learn feedback loop
Another strategic element is the build-measure-learn feedback loop described by Ries.
Build. Create something cheap with essential features (MVP).
Measure. Put it in the market with a pilot test.
Learn. Gather feedback and improve.
The faster you go through this cycle, the faster you reduce uncertainty.
You iterate until:
You’re satisfied with the results, or
The market response tells you to pivot.
Keep what works.Trash what doesn’t.
Simple rule.
Hard discipline.
So, how can you improve the performance of something that already works?
One method is split testing.
Split testing
I want to spend some time on split testing, because I keep seeing companies doing it wrong.
According to Ries, a split test (or A/B test) exposes consumers to two different versions of the same product or service to study changes in behavior and the impact on a specific metric.
There are mainly two ways to run it, but both share one rule:
Change only one element at a time between version A and B.
You can:
Present the same solution to the same audience at different times (to control seasonality), or
Expose different solutions to the same audience at the same time by splitting traffic.
A/B testing can be used for almost everything — landing pages, ad creatives, email subject lines, onboarding flows, pricing pages, and more.
But here’s the mistake: many entrepreneurs start A/B testing right away.
Split testing requires time, effort, money, and energy to analyze.
If the first version doesn’t even hit ROI, it’s not the time to A/B test “a slightly different version of the same problem.”
You can do split testing only after reaching your return on investment.
Think about it.
If version 1 can’t produce ROI, experimenting with version 1.1 is usually just a more expensive way to learn the same lesson.
In that case, go back to build-measure-learn.
CONCLUSIONS
A lean canvas is powerful only if you use it correctly.
The key factor is speed.
The main driver is iteration through small tests.
A business plan can be useful in the right context — but if you’re bootstrapping and racing time-to-market, a 40-page document can turn into a procrastination device with a nice cover.
After reading this article, do you agree with me in saying that a business plan is obsolete (at least in the early stages)?
Tell me what you think in the comments.
References
Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Crown Currency (Penguin Random House), 2011.
Eric Ries, “Managing Extreme Uncertainty the Startup Way,” The Lean Startup (article).
Eric Ries, “What Is an MVP? Eric Ries Explains,” The Lean Startup (article).
Ash Maurya, Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (2nd Edition), O’Reilly Media, 2012.
Ash Maurya, “About Leanstack” (Lean Canvas creator bio).
CB Insights, The Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail (report, analysis of 101 startup post-mortems).
Entrepreneur Small Business Encyclopedia, “Business Plan” (definition).
L. Thabane et al., “A tutorial on pilot studies: the what, why and how,” BMC Medical Research Methodology, 2010.
TechCrunch, “How DropBox Started As A Minimal Viable Product,” Oct 19, 2011 (Dropbox early traction details).
Alexander Osterwalder, The Business Model Ontology: A Proposition in a Design Science Approach, Université de Lausanne, 2004.
Strategyzer, “The Business Model Canvas – Download the Official Template” (definition and overview).
Frank Robinson MVP origin (term credited to SyncDev, 2001), Productboard glossary.
Zappos MVP example (Swinmurn validation story), Tilburg University (entrepreneurship toolbox).
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