Inverted Podcast #29 - Business Model Canvas with Alex Osterwalder

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Inverted Podcast, where we talk about businesses and products and services for successes where nothing happens, that happen behind the scenes, that make sure people stay safe or high quality, etc. And a few months ago, we did a few episodes about the Business Model Canvas that some of us grew up with as startups. And today, we have none other than Alex Osterwalder, the founder of this Business Model Canvas, joining us. So welcome.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. And also welcome back to Dario and Dana. Dana, is it as hot as Seattle as it is in Switzerland?

Dana (0:50)

It's actually pretty nice. We're worried about wildfires now, like smoke from wildfires.

SPEAKER_1 (0:55)

Yeah, like all over the world.

And well, you know, there's also some wildfire going on in the industry where cyber is becoming more and more important.

And it's becoming maybe even part of the foundational of every business, right? I just read today that OpenAI actually hired an executive of Wizz, which is a core security company to be their chief revenue person. So that is like, even there, they're taking a cyber security, at least foundational approach. They're super exciting. Let's start with you, Alex. So excited to have you on the podcast. I used The Business Model Canvas in my startup back in 2013 And so why don't you start just by telling the audience, for those of them who don't know who you are, what you do, and why you created The Business Model Canvas. Tell us the story.

Alex Osterwalder (1:46)

Well, who I am is a big question. I'll answer, like, what am I known for, maybe?

In the sense that I was known for Business Model Canvas. You know, I started a company called Strategizer, and we basically really help companies around the planet, you know, focus on creating value for customers in very different ways. And along the way, we create tools. And The Business Model Canvas was the first one, which actually came out of a doctoral dissertation with Yves Pigneur, who, a long time friend, was my co-author, was my PhD supervisor. And what we worked on was the topic of business models. So that was the origin. And what he was interested in, he was thinking like, okay, business plans don't really work. Could we create something like computer-aided design for entrepreneurs? So it started with entrepreneurs, and today it's used by large companies as well.

And the idea was, well, if we want to do that, we need to create a so-called ontology. It's a big word now with AI, but you need to create some structure, otherwise you can't build software on top. So we created a business model ontology to deeply, you know, to describe what is this thing. Just like you have ontologies for birds, we created one for business models. And that's kind of the origin. Now, out of that came the top layer, which was the Business Model Canvas. At a consulting company, we drew lines on a board, put up sticky notes, became very popular when we published it in our first book, Business Model Generation. And since then, with Strategizer, we created a whole series of tools, because like one tool is one tool, and applying it is just as important as a tool itself, right? So really going deeply into, and we can talk about this, how do you use these kinds of tools to do better business? Because the problem is that often when it comes to business, people talk a lot, but they don't have a lot of structure. Now in IT, coming from IT, you have databases, you have structures around that, in business and around accounting. But when it comes to strategy, value creation, culture, all of a sudden, we feel like we don't need structure anymore, we can just blah, blah.

So what these visual tools do, I'm super passionate about these, not just the Business Model Canvas, but all of these visual tools. They help you create a share language, so you discuss the thing and not just from one to one. So you really work on an object. Like in databases, you created structures that you talk about.

When you code, you have something very concrete you're looking at. In business, it should be the same thing, but beyond processes, when we talk about strategy, culture, value proposition. So that's what I'm excited about. And back to the question, who I am, a lot of things, but definitely passionate about using these kinds of tools to better collaborate in business.

SPEAKER_1 (4:43)

Yeah, and so let's think a bit about business. In our podcast, we talk a lot about security businesses. We talk about companies that go into customers and explain that when you buy our features, something will not happen, or something will be cheaper or something like this.