What is the Business Model Canvas?
The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a one-page strategic template, developed by Dr. Alex Osterwalder, that maps a venture’s nine building blocks: Customer Segments, Value Propositions, Channels, Customer Relationships, Revenue Streams, Key Resources, Key Activities, Key Partnerships, and Cost Structure.
Entrepreneurship instructors use it to help students stress-test startup assumptions before writing a full business plan. This guide gives you Osterwalder’s own classroom exercise, Business Model Matching, plus a free, printable BMC template you can use in any college course today.
Use the free Business Model Canvas template
Fill out the canvas online with our free BMC digital template (or download it as a printable PDF).
When we ran a workshop with Dr. Alex Osterwalder about how he teaches his Business Model Canvas, attendees were so excited about what he was sharing, 98% of them voted to change our schedule on the fly and extend his session from 60 to 90 minutes.
The exercises he was sharing were too engaging to let him stop.
In this article, the first in a 3-part series, we’ll structure Osterwalder’s exercises into easy-to-implement lesson plans you can use with your students.
How to Use the Business Model Canvas in a College Entrepreneurship Course
In a college course, the Business Model Canvas works best as a thinking tool, not a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. Introduce it early, once students have a rough business idea but before they commit to a full plan, so they can see how the nine blocks connect. Most instructors spend one class session on the matching exercise below, then return to the canvas throughout the semester as students gather evidence and revise their assumptions.
If you are building a full course around it, the canvas pairs naturally with a syllabus that sequences problem discovery, validation, and pitching, and with a design thinking exercise earlier in the term to ground students in real customer needs.
Exercise #1: Business Model Matching
To introduce students to the 9 components of the BMC, Dr. Osterwalder starts by giving students a set of business model hypotheses and asking them to place each one in the appropriate box of the BMC.
Prepping Before Class
To make the most efficient use of class time, assign students to watch these videos before class:
- Getting from Business Idea to Business Model
- Visualizing Your Business Model
- 9 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Model
Then you’ll want to print out the worksheets linked in the lesson plan below. Digital worksheets are also in the lesson plan if you’re teaching remotely.
Step 1: Fill the Boxes
Alex uses Airbnb in his first exercise because:
- Students are familiar with Airbnb
- As a two-sided marketplace, Airbnb is a great example of how one business model may need to fulfill the needs of multiple customer segments to be successful
Starting with the “Airbnb BMC: Travelers” worksheet, ask students to write each of the provided business model hypotheses in their appropriate boxes:
Copies of this worksheet are available in the lesson plan below.
We recommend each student complete this individually. While students will work in pairs for the next step, to help increase engagement and discussion, we like using Think. Pair. Share. with this type of exercise, which starts by having students work on their own.
Step 2: Pair
Next, ask students to pair up (if necessary, create breakout rooms for virtual students), and compare their answers. If there’s anything they disagree on, ask them to try to discuss and come to a consensus.
Note: this is an important part of the Think. Pair. Share. process. Talking with a peer helps them organize their thoughts better and practice vocalizing them. If your students are reluctant to speak in class, pairing students up like this before asking for a class-wide discussion can help inspire more interaction.
Step 3: Share
Reconvene the class. Go one by one through the boxes and ask a pair to share what they wrote for a particular box. Go through each of the boxes in this order:
- Customer Segments
- Value Proposition
- Channels
- Customer Relationship
- Revenue Streams
- Cost Structure
- Key Activities
- Key Resources
- Key Partners
Ask a new pair to report out what they wrote for each box and then ask the rest of the class if they had anything else different for that box. If student pairs disagree on what should be in a particular box, use that as an opportunity to increase discussion and, before you reveal the correct answer, have your students vote on which answer they think will be right.
Slides with the correct answers, like the one above, are available in the lesson plan below.
Step 4: Repeat with Airbnb Hosts
Now ask students to fill out the AirBnB BMC: Hosts worksheet using the same Think-Pair-Share technique.
Take time to explain that many businesses don’t have just one business model as a part of their success. Instead, many businesses, like Airbnb, are a multi-sided market. In this business model, the needs of two parties must be met.
You can highlight the popularity of this business model by pointing out that Uber, Doordash, Amazon all have this multi-sided market where the business has to keep multiple customers happy.
How to Debrief the Business Model Canvas Exercise
The debrief is where the learning sticks. After students compare the Travelers and Hosts canvases, ask three questions: Which box was hardest to agree on, and why? Where did the two sides of the marketplace depend on each other? Which assumption in this model would you test first if it were your company? These questions move students from describing a business model to evaluating one, which is the skill they will use when they map their own ventures.
If students will later pitch their own business models, grade their canvases and presentations with a consistent pitch rubric so feedback stays objective across teams.
Summary & Next Steps
Alex prefers simple matching exercises like these as a quick way to introduce the BMC. For more details on how to use it, including worksheets and slides, check out the free lesson plan below.
Next up, Alex provides students with BMCs that are partially filled out and asks students to fill in the rest – which we’ll detail in the next article in this series! We’ll share two more steps in the process Dr. Osterwalder uses to teach the business model canvas:
- How to use fill in the blank exercises to help students create their own canvases
- How to use prioritization exercises to teach how to use the BMC to test business model assumptions
Want More from Dr. Osterwalder?
If you like this exercise, Alex also has two new books that are great resources for the classroom:
Find more about Alex’s work at Strategyzer.com.
Watch Alex Teach
If you’d like to see Alex teach the Business Model Canvas himself, just enter your email below to watch his full workshop on Teaching the BMC:
Get the Teaching the Business Model Canvas Lesson Plan
We’ve created a detailed lesson plan for the “Teaching the Business Model Canvas: Part 1” exercise to walk you and your students through the process step-by-step.
Teaching a full course? The ExEC curriculum includes this Business Model Canvas exercise plus a full 15-week semester plan with graded assignments, slides, rubrics, and an instructor community. Preview the ExEC curriculum →
Read Part 2 In This Series of Teaching the Business Model Canvas
Check out the second post in this series, focused on using a fill-in-the-blank exercise to help students develop their own hypotheses.
Continue the BMC Series: Parts 2 and 3
In upcoming posts, we will share two more steps in the process Dr. Osterwalder uses to teach the business model canvas.
Subscribe here to be the first to get these in your inbox.
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FAQ: Teaching the Business Model Canvas in College
What is the best Business Model Canvas template for college students?
For undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship courses, the standard Osterwalder BMC template works best when paired with a set of pre-written hypotheses students sort into the nine boxes, rather than filling it in cold. This Business Model Matching approach dramatically improves the accuracy of first attempts. A printable classroom version is included in the free lesson plan above.
How long does the Business Model Canvas exercise take to run in class?
The core Business Model Matching exercise runs in about 30 to 45 minutes when students have watched the assigned pre-class videos. For a 75-minute class session, plan roughly 15 minutes for setup, 30 minutes for the matching activity, and 20 minutes for the full-class debrief.
Can I use the Business Model Canvas with both undergraduate and graduate students?
Yes. For undergraduates, anchor it in familiar businesses like Airbnb or Netflix and focus on recognizing the nine components. For graduate or MBA students, have them map a real venture they are building, then use the BMC to surface untested assumptions, which leads naturally into customer discovery and lean startup methodology.
What comes after the Business Model Canvas exercise in an entrepreneurship course?
Once students can accurately map a business model, the next step is teaching them to test the riskiest assumptions in that model, moving into customer interviews, minimum viable products, and the lean validation cycle. Parts 2 and 3 of this series cover how Osterwalder teaches those steps.
Is there a full entrepreneurship curriculum built around the Business Model Canvas?
Yes. The ExEC (Experiential Entrepreneurship Curriculum) is a semester-long college course built around the same experiential approach as this exercise, including structured BMC assignments, customer discovery modules, and pitch preparation. It is used by instructors at hundreds of universities.
