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The Canvas helps you see what your business will look like once it is operating. The Key Resources and Key Activities boxes explain what is needed to operate the business model. The Financial Model explains how much cash is required to start earning profits. The Partners box explains what other organizations you need to work with.
But how do you get from the business idea to an operational business?
For most of the entrepreneurs I work with, they start with nothing. They have no resources, key or otherwise. They have little or no cash. They have no customers. They have no product.
The Immediate Needs box lists the top three to five items needed to turn the business plan into an operating business.
Most likely, one of these items is cash. Be specific. How much do you need? $10,000? $100,0000? $10,000,000? Like any other box, do a “what if” and think about what if you had only one tenth of what you think you need. How could you still get started?
Most likely, one of these items is a new team member with a skill that the founding team lacks. Perhaps you need someone to create and execute the marketing plan or a sales person to start selling or a web developer to create the website. Perhaps you are just overwhelmed as a team of one, and you need more people to help with the work.
It is certainly possible to squeeze these immediate needs into the other existing boxes on the Canvas, but as you will shortly see, it is far more useful to have them organized into a list.
