Learn about the Lean Business Canvas in Wilton

If you are considering a business startup but don’t know where to start, and are wondering if there is a way to test the viability of your business idea before going all in, this upcoming workshop has some answers. Business experts and mentors are coming to Wilton to offer advice and a helping hand at a workshop called “Planning and Promoting Your Business — Business Canvas Clinic for Business Owners.” The workshop is being held Thursday, Nov. 21, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Wilton Library. The workshop gets to the heart of the reasons for product failure: wasting needless time, money, and effort building something nobody wants. To help with those issues, entrepreneurs and small business owners will learn about the Lean Business Canvas, an actionable approach to creating a business plan in a timely way. William Schloth, an investment banker and expert in managing, buying and selling startup and emerging businesses will be the workhop’s lead presenter. Mentors from SCORE, a nonprofit organization that helps individuals start new businesses, will be on hand to help attendees get started on writing their own Lean Business Canvas. Traditional business plans are typically lengthy and cumbersome documents that set out a business's future objectives and strategies for achieving them. Full of numbers and details, traditional business plans can be frustrating for entrepreneurs to prepare. Silicon Valley educator Steve Blank calls a traditional business plan, “a document investors make you write, that they don’t read.” The Lean Business Canvas, created by Ash Maurya, helps business owners and entrepreneurs design a business plan on one sheet of paper in a nine-block concept. In an online report, Maurya said most startups fail, not because they fail to build what they set out to build, but because they waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product. “I attribute a significant contributor to this failure a lack of proper ‘problem understanding’ from the start,” he said. For an entrepreneur, he said, one of the most important tasks is “getting your idea out from your head” into a tangible format so you can communicate it with others. In the past, he said, that usually meant a well-researched business plan, that would usually take weeks (more like months) to create. His Lean Business Canvas consolidates a business plan down to one page, with nine block concepts, making it easier for brainstorming possible business models. “Once you understand the problem, you are then in the best position to define a possible solution,” Maurya said. In the Lean Business Canvas, the focus is on just a few key actions or key macro metrics. To get started on creating a Lean Business Canvas, the following topics will be covered at the Wilton workshop: The difference between a Lean Business Canvas and a business plan. Why you don’t need a product to demonstrate traction. How to deconstruct your big idea. How to focus on what’s riskiest (versus what’s easiest). How to systematically implement your big idea. Schloth and several SCORE mentors will work with attendees on their actual business plans. There is no charge for this workshop, but reservations are required. Register at wiltonlibrary.org/events/. Visit fairfieldcounty.score.org or call SCORE at 203-831-0065 with any questions. Check-in begins at 5:30 p.m. Wilton Library is at 137 Old Ridgefield Road. This SCORE small business workshop is co-sponsored by Wilton Library, Wilton Chamber of Commerce, and United Rentals. The media sponsor is The Wilton Bulletin.

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