Business Model Design and Customer Development are both hugely helpful tools, and are at the crux of Lean Startup and modern product innovation. However, they are also hugely misunderstood and misused. And when you use them wrong, you waste your time without getting any value.


In this full day workshop, you'll learn advanced skills with these two tools, so that you can get better results, faster, and get back to building your product and your business. Taught by Rob Fitzpatrick, serial entrepreneur of 10 years, alum of YCombinator, author of The Mom Test (top selling book about how to talk to customers) and passionate user of the Business Model Canvas. Featuring a mix of hands-on practice, scenario challenges, exercises, and high-value lectures, this should be a fun and helpful day for anyone interested in entrepreneurship or innovation.

1. You'll get hands-on using the Business Model Canvas (BMC) to its full potential:
   
   
   1. Identifying the risks, assumptions, and guesses in your plan, so you can focus on what matters most
      
   2. Rapidly exploring alternative possibilities, for finding a solution when Plan A hasn't worked
      
   3. Intentionally designing "monopoly effects" to make your business more defensible and more valuable
      
   4. Analyzing an industry and the major competitors, to understand their moves (like why Facebook paid $20B for Whatsapp) and find a way to attack them
      
      
2. You'll learn the practical skills of talking to customers, getting honest feedback, and transitioning into closed sales, even when everyone is lying to you
   
   
   1. Understanding why customers lie (usually with compliments and opinions), and why most surveys and market research are useless
      
   2. How to gather customer feedback which is reliable, trustworthy, and unbiased, and which you can use to build a better product and a better business
      
   3. How to switch from "learning" into "sales", and how to start securing your first 10 customers or partners
      
   4. How to do it all faster, so you can learn what matters and then get back to your business
      
      

We'll begin the day with a quick review of modern evidence-based entrepreneurship, and will then jump straight into learning and using the tools, and wrestling with a variety of interesting challenge scenarios. While the topics will overlap a bit, the morning will be more focused on the Business Model Canvas, and the afternoon will be more focused on talking to customers. You'll leave with a signed copy of The Mom Test book, a workbook reviewing the main ideas we covered, and a set of worksheets to help you prepare for and succeed at your next set of customer conversations and important meetings.


This workshop will be taught in English, and is intended primarily for early-stage entrepreneurs and product managers (and anyone trying to figure out how to build and launch a breakthrough new product) in any industry.