Business Model Canvas Should Pay More Attention to the Software Startup Team

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a tool widely used to describe startup business models. Despite the various business aspects described, BMC pays a little emphasis on team- related factors. The importance of team-related factors in software development has been acknowledged widely in literature. While not as extensively studied, the importance of teams in software startups is also known in both literature and among practitioners. In this paper, we propose potential changes to BMC to have the tool better reflect the importance of the team, especially in a software startup environment. Based on a literature review, we identify various components related to the team, which we then further support with empirical data. We do so by means of a qualitative case study of five startups.

I. Introduction

Business Models play a pivotal role in early-stage startups, guiding the co-development of software products and customers. The Business Model Canvas (BMC) [14] is a prevalent visual modelling tool used to capture the business model of an organization. It consists of nine non-overlapping elements of knowledge which represent how business is done [10]. It allows a company to model its current or desired future business models. By using BMC, an organization can identify necessary resources and activities for capturing busines value.