Key activities are those activities that are vital for your startup’s business model to run successfully.
For example, if you’re offering a delivery platform focused on elderly people, you’ll need to be excellent at managing the platform, executing logistics, and educating your customers.
Therefore, each decision you take on your startup’s business model canvas will impact directly your startup’s key activities.
WHY IS IT A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION?
Once these activities have a huge impact on your startup’s results, a failure on executing them means a failure on executing your business. That’s why you need to guarantee they’ll be managed with excellence.
By mapping and understanding these activities, you’ll be able to visualize the factors that may harm their execution:
- Costs: Are your key activities too expensive? Will your startup generate enough revenue to cover the costs?
- Feasibility: Are you technically able to perform all your key activities? Is there any riskier assumption on their execution?
- Scalability: Will scaling your startup demand you to proportionally increase the resources on your key activities?
FINDING THE ANSWER
Your key activities will be a direct consequence of your definitions of Value Proposition, Customer Segments, Channels, and Customer Relationship.
Therefore, the first step is to visualize how these elements will be executed in real life.
For example, if your solution is a productivity app for big corporations, one crucial activity is to sell. In this case, the sales process needs to be well-designed to overcome the challenges of closing such big deals.
Thus, selling is one of your key activities. That’s why you should invest time and energy in thinking about its costs, feasibility, and scalability.
In this case, important questions will arise: Do I need a sales team? How much will it cost? How many salespeople will I need to make one sale?
By anticipating such questions you will prepare yourself to overcome possible hurdles and find execution alternatives.
CHECKLIST
- Visualize the Business Model Canvas Components working in real life;
- Identify the vital activities for your business model to run successfully;
- Evaluate the costs, feasibility, and viability of each activity;
- Identify possible execution alternatives for key activities.
With your key activities mapped, it’s time to answer one more question:
What Are Your Startup’s Key Partners?
Recommended Reading:
Business Model Generation
by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur