Readings of week 2

For this week, we have several articles ready for you! In the lecture, we focused on the Value Proposition Canvas. However, there is much more to know about this canvas and other surrounding tools that could help you in your entrepreneurial journey. We will not test you on this knowledge in the quiz, but we do ask you to read the following articles in order to gain a better understanding.

1. The Value Proposition Canvas is designed by Alexander Osterwalder. In this article, Osterwalder himself explains how this tool works.

A. Osterwalder (2012). Achieve Product-Market with our brand-new Value Proposition Designer Canvas. URL: http://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-proposition-designer.html

2. A blog discussion by Alexander Osterwalder on the difference between users and customers. This understanding between users and customers may be important to your offer as well, in order to articulate the key elements of your value proposition in the eyes of your target customer

A. Osterwalder (2010). Users vs Customers. URL: http://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2010/07/users-vs-customers.html

3. This article is about the customer-centric approach: “How to create your lean canvas”. This article, up to page 17 ‘Channels’ gives you insights on how to identify the key problems customers have and the possible solutions to offer to them.

Running Lean (n.d.). How to Create your Lean Canvas. URL: https://leanstack.com/LeanCanvas.pdf

4.  The empathy map is shortly explained in this article. The empathy map is a person-centered method to understand the customer experience.

Empathy Map (n.d.). URL: https://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/resource/Hackathon_Empathy_Map_Handout.pdf

If you are looking for background information, or more in-depth knowledge about the Value Proposition Design, we recommend you read the book Value Proposition Design by A. Osterwalder, Y. Pigneur, G. Bernada and A. Smith (2014). This reading is optional.