As introduced in the previous blog, for the last year I’ve been working freelance for the ARC Accelerator supporting academics from the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences to develop their research insights into impacts (https://davejarman.co.uk/2023/02/01/case-study-supporting-arts-and-social-science-researchers-to-generate-impacts-from-their-research-ongoing-since-spring-2022/).

In the process of this work we’ve used an array of existing venture-planning tools from professional practice including a variety of canvasses. We use the canvasses as a means of ‘unpacking the head’ and making would-be-founders ideas and assumptions apparent on paper, both to themselves and to those they interact with. This process of teasing out the assumptions for testing and gathering feedback is really helpful and canvas tools can articulate a lot of the key relationships and questions.

In this blog I’m going to focus on the changes and ‘enhancements’ we made to the popular Strategyzer Value Proposition Canvas and Business Model Canvas. As with the previous canvasses we adapted, the language of these is quite commercial; very much focused on ‘customers’, for-profit start-ups, and with product-oriented businesses. Even though a familiar user of such tools can translate the terms and interpret it for wider audiences, for a new and unfamiliar audience we know the language can be a barrier to engagement. For an audience of academic researchers who are new to this space the language often does not resonate helpfully.

The ARC Value Proposition Canvas

Personally I find the Value Proposition Canvas *really* helpful to get would-be entrepreneurs to empathise with their audiences and the context that audience is operating within. That focus on finding the core Job-to-be-done and then the surrounding barriers to adoption and useful up-side by-products helps to really refine the value of the idea to each audience member.

However, *everyone* always gets really confused by what goes where on the canvas, what the ‘job’ is versus the nice-to-haves etc, its usually too full of marginal issues, and people often assume that their audience’s needs are the exact match of the offering’s features.

So what did we change?

• We made clearer that each VPC should be for a specific audience segment.
• We redefined the original ‘customer jobs’ as ‘Beneficiary/User/Customer Job(s)-to-be-done’ which we think is both more inclusive of different audiences and hints at the idea of narrowing down the focus of the need being expressed,
• We added an element asking how ‘success’ in that job would be evaluated. This ‘measurement’ question really helps our canvas-completers to focus on how impacts are acknowledged by the relevant audience.
• We separated the ‘context’ out more clearly – so ‘In the process of doing-the-job’ we frame the original gains and pains as ‘opportunities’ and ‘barriers’.
• Rather than refer to ‘Product/Service’ we changed it to ‘Value Proposition Offering’.
• We added an element asking how that ‘value added’ would be measured.
• And than separated the ‘context’ by asking ‘By engaging in the offering…’ what were the gain-enabling and pain-relieving features.

So far, our audiences have found this easier to complete and have asked far fewer questions about what to put where!

The ARC Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a similarly useful tool to plug a Value Proposition into and then explore the ‘mechanism’ that powers the creation of value.

Our main change here was simply adjusting the language to Audiences rather than Customers.

What else did we change?

• We split the old ‘Channels’ box into ‘Audience Awareness Channels’ (how do audiences ‘discover’ your offering?) and ‘Audience Transaction Channels’ (how do audiences buy from you?) – which we find a useful question.
• We split the old Revenues box into both ‘Revenues’ and ‘Impacts’ (which many other social purpose canvas variations have done before!) We find this another very useful addition that serves our ARC audiences well and forces the question about what difference is being made (beyond economic sustainability) and how it’s being measured.
• We split the old ‘Partnerships’ box into both ‘Key Partners (Essential)’ which flags the critical partners which many social purpose projects have, i.e. policy-makers, the NHS, Schools, Local Authorities, Government, and so on. These are essential gatekeepers to the whole process. We then have ‘Key Partners (Outsourcing)’ to highlight the merely ‘useful’ partners who provide services or offer economies of scale or access to equipment.
• We adapted the language throughout in terms of the provocation questions in each box too.

We are exploring another variation of this for Consultancy projects – watch this space!

Let me know what you think and how you get on using them – Creative Commons licensed PPTs are linked below.