????上周我在創業孵化公司TechStars擔任導師的時候，好幾個小組問我的問題都最終指向同一個地方：請您畫出一幅商業模式圖來。每個人都能、或者號稱能做到，但顯然都沒有經過反復演練。商業模式不是商業計劃，但兩者往往被混為一談。如何判斷兩者的區別呢？商業模式通常只占一張紙、一幅活頁掛圖或一塊白板的篇幅，它經常會被提到，具有廣泛的用途。商業計劃則是厚厚的一摞紙，即使是作者本人也很少會全文通讀，其他人自然更不用說了。

????During my TechStars office hours sessions last week, several teams asked me questions that led to the same place: Please draw a business model diagram. Everyone could, or said they could, but in each case it was clearly not a practiced exercise. A business model is not a business plan, although the two are often confused. How can you tell the difference? A business model fits on one piece of paper (or one flip chart page or one white board), is referred to regularly and has all sorts of uses. A business plan is a big pile of paper that even the author doesn't read all the way through, and certainly no-one else does.

????我們為什么需要有這樣只占一頁的商業模式圖？下面是我的四點理由。

????? 完整性：它可以確定你商業模式的方方面面已經就緒。這里說的不是事無巨細的完整性。它應該是高層次的，而不是糾纏于細節。當然，如果存在很大的漏洞，同樣也會一目了然。

????? 一致性：可以判斷商業模式的各個方面是否一致。比如，涉及合作伙伴的假設與涉及渠道的假設一致嗎？

????? 一目了然: 可以看到所有的同事是否清楚你正在做什么？為什么要這么做？必須確保這一點。如果要求他們獨立畫出商業模式圖，他們畫出的圖會是一樣的嗎？商業模式圖為討論確定了一個明確的焦點，我們可以討論商業模式各方面是否形成了一個整體，還可以看出人們對你正在做的事是否有什么誤解或不同見解。

????? 溝通：你向創業導師、顧問、潛在雇員和投資者暢談自己的商業設想時，可以畫出商業模式圖，也可也進行調整。它可以確定員工會議、董事會討論或投資者演示的焦點。相比一頁文字，人們更容易地記住一張圖（并根據基本的原則重新繪制一張圖）。

????如果你已經開始考慮創業，你就已經開始將思考形成圖形。這就是起點。花上一個小時。絕對不要超過90分鐘。把它留在一塊白板上，與同事和顧問們一起分享。讓他們粘上便利貼，提出自己的問題。每次至少和幾個人一起來回顧這張圖，讓頭腦風暴激發出好點子。不要擔心一些細枝末節的事情，即便是由九部分組成的商業模式樣板（Business Model Canvas），也只需重點填寫六、七部分就可以推進。所有公司的關鍵活動都是“銷售和營銷”，所有科技公司都“開發了科技平臺”（而且，“科技平臺”還會出現在接下來的關鍵資源這一項下面）。無需事無巨細。真正要操心的是明確價值主張，包括每個細分客戶群體、細分的關鍵資產和關鍵合作伙伴以及推動經濟效益的營收和成本分項。商業模式圖的高級應用包括層層關鍵假定、獲得明確的假設以及對假定的檢驗。硅谷創業老將史蒂夫?布蘭克最近有一篇精彩的相關文章，談到了對商業模式方法論的誤解（以及修正的方法）。Spill網站的Heidi Allstop向我推薦了這個很棒的資源，對網絡模板工具感興趣的人可以點擊查看。

????作者：老榆木

????本文作者理查德?戴爾(@rdale)是波士頓地區風投公司Sigma Partners的合伙人。他的個人博客地址是Venture Cyclist。

?? Here?are my four reasons to have a one-page business model picture

????? Completeness: You can make sure you have addressed all aspects of the business model. This is not exhaustive completeness – it should be quite high level and avoid getting into the weeds – but you get to see if you have any glaring holes.

????? Consistency: You can see whether all aspects of the business model are consistent with each other. For example, does the assumption about partners line up with the assumption about channels?

????? Clarity: You can see whether (and ensure that) all of your colleagues are clear about what you are doing and why .If asked to draw the model independently, would they draw the same thing? The model becomes a concrete focus for discussion about how it all fits together and brings out any misunderstandings or disagreements about what you are doing.

????? Communication: You can draw and redraw the model as you tell the story of your business to mentors, advisers, potential recruits, and potential investors. It can focus a staff meeting, board discussion or investor presentation. You can much more easily remember a diagram (and recreate it from first principles) than you can remember a page of text.

????If you have started to think about a business you have started to diagram things out. That's where to start. Take an hour. Certainly stop after 90 minutes. Leave it on a white board. Share it with colleagues and advisors. Let them add post-it notes with questions. Go back to it with at least a couple of people around each time – let the brainstorming drive good thinking. Don't sweat the small stuff – even on the nine-sections of the Business Model Canvas, you only need six or seven elements to get going. Every company has "sales and marketing" as a Key Activity, and every tech company has "develop the tech platform" as well (and then "tech platform" shows up on the Key Resources panel, too). Don't worry about that kind of completeness. Do worry about a value proposition for each customer segment, differentiated key assets and key partners, and revenue and cost components that characterize the economic drivers of the business. Advanced uses of a business model diagram include layering on key assumptions, generating explicit hypotheses, and building out tests of those assumptions. On a very related note, Steve Blank recently wrote a great post on misunderstanding a business model methodology (and how to fix it). Heidi Allstop of Spill shared this great resource?with me for those interested in an online canvas tool.

????Richard Dale (@rdale) is a partner with Boston-area VC firm Sigma Partners. He blogs at Venture Cyclist.