There is a moment for the canvas... and a canvas for each moment

We have discussed before the role of the elements in a business model canvas and the different relevance they have -in terms of priority and detail to be analyzed with- depending on the specific moment in our startup development timeline. It is therefore convenient to start analyzing with more detail those elements in the equation that relates market, problem and solution, and then progressively increase the effort devoted to validate the remaining key elements in the future business model. In a very similar way -and somehow turning the reasoning over- we must understand that the elements that we analyze in a business model are not immutable, which is why it is essential to assimilate that, for each moment in the evolution timeline of our business and its key elements, the "picture" captured in a canvas will be necessarily different.

In fact, this is the right way to understand how a business model canvas works, that is, as a "snapshot" capturing the elements in a business model in a specific moment (we might think of it as a "balance sheet" containing qualitative information about a business and not just economic data). The reason for it is that, in essence, this tool comes from a PhD thesis project aiming at identifying the core properties that characterize a business model "at work". We could therefore say that, as the values for those core properties change and evolve over time -i.e., it is not the set of properties or "canvas blocks" which changes, but which validated data we register on them-, we should handle different canvases according to the specific moment in the business evolution timeline we want to model.

We can see a clear example of this if we analyze the customer segments and their features, one of the essential elements to model. It is evident that, as time goes on, the archetype or persona we are modeling will evolve and, therefore, their problems to be solved, their jobs to be done and the benefit they expect from it will all change. If this is the kind of information we are registering in the customer segments block in the canvas -which also influences the value proposition, another of the key blocks-, we must foresee different "snapshots" modeling this market-problem-solution relationship depending on the moment in time we want to focus on. This does not imply that we should thoroughly detail every one of these future models, but it is convenient to have them analyzed and kept for the moment when customer evolution and our relationship with them reach the appropriate point.

We could do a very similar reasoning regarding the key resources to be modeled in a canvas. Depending on the moment in our startup evolution timeline, the aim of our work and therefore the necessary abilities in our team will change. As we have discussed before, the evolution in our customer segments will imply a change in the value proposition we want to offer to them. As a result of this, the technical competences needed in our team will be different, in order to build the solutions which will provide whoever our customers will be in that specific moment with the required value.

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