You are convinced to need a mobile app for your business but need more ideas on how things would work. Don’t worry; you aren’t sailing the boat alone. Our mobile app development team has a solution to your problem, the Mobile App Business Model Canvas. 

“If you want to launch a mobile app, build a business model canvas.”

What is a Business Model Canvas?

A simple graphical representation that would help with idea generation, product conception, and scheme building for your business app. 

Not sure how it may help?

Well, relax. We answer all your doubts here.  

Why is a Business Model Canvas Required While Developing Applications?

You may transform a concept into a product using the business model canvas.

The business model canvas for a mobile app consists of three elements:

Clear Picture of Your Business 

Thanks to the canvas’s visibility, you may condense the information from a conventional business plan into a single page and concentrate on the core idea.

Flexible Action Plan 

A business canvas is editable as you develop new ideas or need modifications in various sections.

Comprehensive Representation

Your company model’s diagrammed structure is simpler and quicker to comprehend than a lengthy written text. Your team can see important information on the canvas.

Sounds similar to the app business plan that you have in mind? 

Na Na…it isn’t!

The Business Model Canvas and an App Business Plan: Understanding the Difference  

Even with the similarities, a business model canvas and a business plan are two different things that focus on entirely different aspects. Here our mobile app developers help you understand the difference. 

Format

Business Model Canvas: A pictorial representation of your business structure. It talks about your strategy and how to realize the idea. This doesn’t talk about estimates and numbers; it helps us check the essential attributes.

Business Plan: This is your extended model canvas. Here you talk about the strategy for each attribute in the canvas. This would also include all the mathematics and calculations.

Purpose – What is the purpose of a business model canvas?

Business Model Canvas: This is where you do all the brainstorming. Once you complete the research and validate the plan, you start with the project. 

Business Plan: It is the foundation of your product. You work on a business plan once you have researched well and the idea looks logical and validated. 

Validation

Business Model Canvas: This validates your idea and helps you identify the problems and the strategies for further execution of your business plan. 

Business Plan: You move to this step only when the idea is validated. Further, with all the calculations and pros and cons, you check the feasibility of the application. 

So, yes. 

Your mobile app “Business plan” and “business model canvas” are two different things. 

 Let’s see how you build a business model canvas for your mobile application idea. We’ll discuss the essential elements and their relevance in mobile app development. 

How to Build a Business Model Canvas: Everything You Ought to Know 

Well, your business model canvas is the essence of your mobile application. The model clearly reflects your mind mapping and brainstorming on your whiteboard. It shows what sets you apart from the competition and your USPs. 

The critical elements of the Mobile app business model canvas are: 

  • Customer Segments
  • Key Partnerships
  • Key Activities
  • Revenue Streams
  • Value Propositions
  • Channels
  • Key Resources
  • Customer Relationships
  • Cost Structure

Sample Mobile App Business Model Canvas

Business Model Canvas

1. Value Proposition

Any product that enters the market works only if it solves the users’ problems. The value proportion of your mobile app must talk about the significant points of your application.

Novelty: Your business idea must have a unique quotient and address a problem that has never been addressed before. 

Productivity: Reflect the client’s corporate and personal needs. 

Pricing: Look for cost optimization to offer the product at the most affordable rates to your customers.  

The value proposition defines how you would stand out from your competition in offering your services. 

2. Key Partners

In no universe can any business be self-sustained. It would be best if you established partnerships with various people and organizations to fulfill the needs of your business. “Key Partners” is crucial to include in your business model canvas. 

Some possible partnerships you may need to consider are:  

Co-founders: One person cannot have all the talents. You should partner with someone to help escalate your technical skills, sales, or another aspect of your business. 

Contractual Partners: They generally look for significant legal and financial parts of the business. When developing a mobile app, legal considerations cannot be ignored. 

Also Read: Legal Considerations of Building a Mobile App

Suppliers: No matter your business type, you need equipment and objects to run your business. In that case, shortlisting suitable suppliers can give you a financial advantage over your competition. 

No matter how big or small the role, make sure to miss no partners in the list. 

This helps you keep things streamlined when working on future steps of your mobile application. 

3. Key Resources

To build your mobile application, there are various resources that you may need. You may need a human resource team, a sales team, a development team, and whatnot. These team members would be your critical resources. Let’s categorize them under various sections for a better understanding.

  • Material Resources: This includes equipment, infrastructure, transportation, and logistics. 
  • Intellectual Resources: This includes properties you build an identity on over the internet, like trademarks, patents, databases, etc.
  • Human Resources: This includes people who would be a part of your team. Developers, researchers, and others.
  • Financial Resources: This includes all your finance-related calculations and sources. 

Customers & Sales

For a valuable business, you must understand your customers well. You must know how to woo them with your designs, navigation, aesthetics, and marketing to help you grow in the field.

4. Customer Segments

Once you understand the basic needs of your business, the next in line is understanding your customers. As you explore the details here, analyze what problems your potential audience is facing and how the demographic define their needs and interests. 

Some essential questions to address are: 

  • What is your target audience group? 
  • What is their average age? 
  • Where are they based? 
  • Why would they be interested in your app? 
  • How would you lure them into purchasing your product? 

Once you have answered these questions, you will have a buyer persona to define your customer. Understanding your customers’ preferences would help you stay ahead of the competition.  

This helps you build a strong presence in the market with a streamlined marketing effort. 

Also Read: How to Market Your App Effectively

5. Key Activities

Another essential aspect to cover here is, once you know the buyer persona, how would you reach your customers? You must express your value proposition to your customers to get those sales. 

Since you are looking forward to launching your mobile app, you must focus on ASO and other digital marketing techniques to beat your competition.

Here you would find channels to increase sales and build a solid digital presence.  

6. Customer Relationship

You must decide how to deal with your clients and provide for them in this situation. Check out the structure of this procedure.

Connect with Customer Executive: Customer contact with a company representative directly through personal assistance.

Smart Customer Dealing: Self-service entails a business giving clients all the resources they need to handle everything themselves without requiring direct communication.

Automate and Grow: An improved version of self-service that combines automated technologies like chatbots with automated service.

Community: Build a network where users can share their experiences. The organization can better grasp customer wants with the use of this form.

7. Sales Channels

How will you sell the value you offer? As you finish this section of your canvas, consider this.

The two leading mobile app business model choices are iOS and Android. Consider selling your goods online, through email marketing, social media, etc.

Finance

Your business model canvas’s final section will outline your app’s two primary cash flows: costs and income. Here, you should keep an eye on all potential costs and take product monetization into account.

8. Cost Structure

You will face fewer difficulties while designing your software for the more expensive items you manage. Let’s go over the costs you will undoubtedly incur:

  • Organizational charges – hiring attorneys and accountants to help your business become a legal entity.
  • Everything you need to get your business up and going, including an office and the required tools.
  • Hardware, your team’s labor in developing software, and upkeep of the web platform are all included in development costs.
  • Payroll services for human resources.
  • Promotion and marketing

Additionally, we advise setting aside money in your budget for unforeseen costs. Always take precautions and be safe.

9. Revenue Streams

How will you make money with your application? Let’s examine some potential choices:

  • Income from selling the value proposition (selling the physical goods, commission, subscriptions. etc.)
  • Advertising (you can utilize your platform to put ads). 
  • Use of brands (when your app gains popularity, you will be able to charge for the use of the brand)

These are the critical elements of an ideal mobile app business model canvas. 

We share some practical examples of business model canvas to help you understand how things work. 

How to Use Business Model Canvas for Your App Idea?

Develop a 10 minute-Grocery Delivery App like Zepto

As we talk about developing a grocery delivery application, there are a few things that you cannot ignore. 

You need to consider the funds, the delivery partners, the dark stores, etc. 

Read Here: How to Develop a 10-minute Grocery Delivery App Like Zepto

In the blog, we have included the business model canvas of a grocery delivery app to help you understand what details you need when developing your application. 

Develop a Grocery Delivery App like Instacart

Another exciting application setting up the model for other new startups is Instacart. 

The application offers everything from a needle to a grocery to everything under one roof. 

Read Here: How to Develop an App like Instacart?

In this blog, we have included everything required to build an app like Instacart. 

Develop a Rideshare App 

Rideshare applications are gaining popularity these days. You can build a strong presence in the market with a well-defined business plan. 

Read Here: How to Develop a Rideshare Business App?

The Benefits of Using the Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas offers the following main advantages:

1. Gives a Clear Direction to the Action Plan 

The business model canvas aids in defining how businesses will distribute their goods to consumers. Along with giving you a competitive advantage, it enables you to create a successful business through product innovation and innovative business design.

2. It Is Concise and Self-Explanatory.

It enables you to adjust your startup journey as you go along by helping you chronicle it. What would you do to a 100-page document? The business model is a plan that initially describes your company and on which you later grow. To get your team, investors, partners, and employees on board with your vision, it is helpful to have simple communication with them.

3. Needs of the Target Market

Product/Market Fit, not the actual product, is the leading cause of startup failure. We should pay added attention to this and focus our efforts on creating fantastic products. A dead saying is, “Build it, and they will come.” You are forced to think outside the box by the business model canvas. The business becomes more apparent as you consider the many consumer categories you can serve, how you will offer your product and the required resources. It helps you communicate with customers clearly if you have it documented.

4. Minimizes the Possibility of Failure

You may take the necessary action to put your idea on the market with the business model canvas. Your marketing strategy, positioning statement, and sales strategy can all benefit from making connections between your value proposition, consumer segments, and revenue streams. The advantage you have over rivals engrossed in the many pages of the business strategy is that you can read this.

5. Effective scientific framework

The business model canvas is a tried-and-true innovation methodology for major corporations and startups. Zepto, Instacart, and Zomato all started there. 

The Final Words!

Working on the business model canvas can help you and your team clarify the goal. Also, it would let you abide by your business objective and vision. When you reach the development form with a clearly defined business canvas, they can help you bring to the screen an exact solution that would reflect your idea. 

Spend a little longer on the homework, and you are already ahead of your competitors.

mobile app development
THE AUTHOR
Digital Marketing Manager
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Driven by a deep curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, Mann constantly seeks to uncover the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry. His ability to dive into complex concepts and distill them into engaging content sets him apart as a reliable source of information for his readers.

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