--- title: Business Models description: Business models define how a company generates revenue and delivers value to customers. Learners will understand different structures, such as subscription, freemium, and marketplace models, and how to select the right framework for a venture. category: business-entrepreneurship subcategory: entrepreneurship difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/business-models --- # Business Models Business models define how a company generates revenue and delivers value to customers. Learners will understand different structures, such as subscription, freemium, and marketplace models, and how to select the right framework for a venture. ## Where to start Start with Business Model Canvas Explained, a free beginner video in which Alexander Osterwalder introduces the Business Model Canvas. If you only use one resource, make it Value Proposition Design by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur and co-authors, which adds a canvas for matching products to customer jobs, pains and gains. To practise redesigning models, take the Business Model Innovation course from Tecnológico de Monterrey. ## Available Resources 1 Videos • 1 Books • 2 Courses • 4 Websites ## Videos ### 1. Alex Osterwalder: Business Model Innovation Short animated explainer from the University of St. Gallen, written by Oliver Gassmann, on how business model innovations arise and the common myths around them. Viewers see why recombining existing business model patterns, rather than inventing from scratch, drives most successful innovation. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ZSGQW0UMI **Tags:** business-model-innovation, business-model-navigator, innovation-management, strategy ## Websites ### 1. Business Model Toolbox Free templates and guides for business model innovation **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://bmtoolbox.net/ ### 2. strategyzer.com Strategyzer provides tools and training for designing, testing, and scaling business models, featuring the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas along with templates, case studies, and practical guides. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://strategyzer.com **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ### 3. leanstartup.co Lean Startup Co. is the official hub for the Lean Startup methodology, providing guidance on validated learning, rapid experiments, and customer development. The site offers articles, case studies, books, training programs, and events to help entrepreneurs and teams apply lean principles to build successful products and businesses. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://leanstartup.co **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ### 4. hbr.org Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) offers research-based articles, case studies, and practical guidance on leadership, strategy, and organizational performance for managers and executives. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://hbr.org **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, business-fundamentals ## Courses ### 1. Business Model Innovation Three-week course from Tecnológico de Monterrey teaching a structured method for designing and redesigning business models through observation, visual mapping, white-space analysis and storytelling. Learners practise identifying unexploited activities and reshaping value propositions within an existing business model. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/design-and-innovation-of-business-model **Tags:** courses, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ### 2. Business Strategy In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value. In doing so, you’ll develop an understanding of how and why this process is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand value creation, and capture and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a variety of perspectives, including the industry-level (e.g., five forces analysis) and the firm-level (e.g., business models and strategic positioning). You will be able to: - Understand how managers coordinate different functional areas, resources, and systems inside a company and align them with the external environment to enhance overall performance - Recognize strategic management tools and frameworks and apply them to real business contexts - Process diverse business and industry information to diagnose strategic issues, evaluate strategic alternatives, and formulate a coherent and actionable strategic plan This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 4-6 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/strategy-business **Tags:** courses, business-entrepreneurship, business-fundamentals ## Books ### 1. Value Proposition Design **Author:** Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith Companion to Business Model Generation introducing the Value Proposition Canvas, a tool for mapping customer jobs, pains and gains against products and features. Readers learn to design, prototype and test value propositions with customers before committing resources to them. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118968050?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/business-models