Lean Canvas in Action - Part I

Let's continue with our discussion on Lean Canvas. This time I'd like to pass through the process of actually using the template. For a long time I've wanted to create a wedding event community site and now is a good time to explore that opportunity and build a business model.

The Problem
As I described in my previous post, the first step is to identify the problem that we as entrepreneurs are trying to resolve. After doing a competitive analysis I have identified the following problems:

1. Planning a wedding event is a complicated task
2. It requires knowledge and tools
3. Unified offline, online and mobile solution needs to be available

Thus, the question is how are couples doing this today? That's when alternative solutions get identified. Today couples are using one or more of the following solutions:

1. Couples rely on family and friends to help them plan the event
2. Use professional services of wedding planners (very costly)
3. There are some tools that are available for planning purposes 
4. Attend bridal shows as a source of information

With the problem and alternatives identified, the next step is to define the Customer Segment.

Customer Segment
The customer segment is the heart of any business. We can identify one or more customer groups that our business is going to address. To identify these groups we need to answer the question: for whom are we creating value?

In our example, there are few groups of users who will benefit from our site, such as:

1. Bride and groom 
2. Photographers
3. Wedding music bands
4. Flower shop owners
5. Catering services
6. Event venues 
7. Jewellery stores 

From all identified customer groups our primary group is the bride and the groom. Our focus is to satisfy their needs and enable other groups to participate in that effort. To be more specific at this point, I'm looking for early adopters; by saying that I'm looking for people who consider the internet part of their DNA.

The Unique Value Proposition

The next step is also the most important and the toughest to get right. It's developing a statement of the Unique Value Proposition that our site will offer. What's the definition of Unique Value Proposition? It's why we are different and worth getting attention from our primary customer segment. A Unique value proposition could be:

1.     Improved product or service performance

2.     Develop a customizable product to fit users needs

3.     Great user experience

4.     Addressing user needs

5.     New functionality

6.     Price

So, let's try to develop a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)  for our site: For our site the UVP is to provide a one stop shop experience with accessibility any time and any place. This means that we want to provide:

1. Unique user experience to our clients 
2. Rich functional experience such as: 
1. wedding planner
2. registry
3. tools for searching service providers
4. tools for providing reviews and feedback on purchased services  
5. rich online and rich mobile experience
3. Search tools for service providers based on geo-location

With these three steps we have specified the problem that we are trying to resolve, defined our target customer segment and the unique value proposition that our offering is going to have.

Our next step is to talk about the proposed solution.

Solution
In this section our goal is to identify an initial high level list of functionalities that the system needs to support. Because it's still early in the product development cycle do not get carried away and go too deep into the description - additional research may be conducted through interviews that may pivot the feature set. For now, here is the initial list of features that I want the site to support:

1. Each user is able to create its own profile under which planning information and details are going to be stored
2. The site is going to provide wedding planning tools
3. The system is going to provide park/scene spot search tool
4. The system is going to provide search tools for service providers per category based on geo information (categories: photographer, flower shop, wedding gown shops, event venues, restaurants)
5. User is going to be able to provide feedback on services (review and rating)
6. Share with you social network feature
7. Mobile access to your planner
8. Enable service providers to build up their profile page.

In my next blog entry I will continue with this example.

(to be continued...)