Prototyping and business models: A small company, run and managed by its original founders
The company, which is in the music-technology business, has been through both ups and downs in its 25 year old history. Recently, though, the owners wanted to experiment a bit with their approach.
With two different product ideas, we modelled both the Value Proposition and Business Model - resulting in a crystallization of ideas for the products but also potential new ways of selling them. The modelling uncovered the traditional (and not very systemic) ways in which the founders did user-research and product design. Throughout the sessions, we saw that the new products might need more research into their value propositions. Also, we discovered that for one of the products, a different business model might be a potential supplement to the existing one. Some of these insights had probably already been lurking in the back the team’s heads – but having to model and discuss them through the canvases forced them out in the open, and initiated valuable discussions on new ways of conducting user-researching and the need of exploring a new business model.