It's, of course, critical that you
understand the key activities
required to grow your
business. And if this is the first
time you've start at a company
that may be some new turf to think
about, that's pretty critical to
understand.
We'll talk about some things to
think about in key activities
in this video.
Hi, I'm Steve Morris.
I use this StartupSOS Channel to
provide practical how to advice for
first time entrepreneurs.
The topic today, your key
activities for your business.
We're walking through the business
model canvas. We've covered the
right side.
We've done key resources for the
left side.
Now we're focused on key activities.
All of these things on the left side
are going to drive your cost
structure.
So they're particularly important
things to understand.
To think about key activities, we
can break your company down to
probably one of four categories.
Is it a company that does, in one
way or another production -
producing a product or is it more
of a problem solving focused
company or a software tool
company or more than a tool
company - a company that's
developing a platform or a network.
In a production company,
you would be designing, making,
delivering and marketing and selling
a product.
And let's say in this case, it's
it's probably a physical product.
Those involve key activities.
Every one of those key
stages.
So the challenge is to think through
what are the key activities
that will be critical, that you'll
have to have the skills, the
financing, the understanding
and the knowhow to successfully
complete to grow your
particular kind of business.
And those are the assumptions that
go into this section
in your business model canvas.
Another category of company would be
a problem solving company.
Now this might be, say, a consulting
firm or in terms of a
hospital - a lot of what goes on in
a hospital is problem solving
kinds of activity.
Well, what are critical activities
in that kind of a business?
Well, certainly knowledge management
knowledge is key when
your value is problem solving.
Recruitment can be a real challenge.
If you're doing knowledge
management, problem solving, you've
got to get the right people in.
And sometimes those people can be
hard to find.
Continuous training can be
important. If problem solving is
your core activity.
And of course, marketing and selling
is pretty much always a
critical factor in a business.
So if you're primarily
a problem solving kind of
organization, think through
these categories.
What are the key activities
in your version of a
problem solving business that you'll
have to be good at?
And again, you'll have to fund.
Another category, a software tool
company.
What's critical for a software
company? Well, at least they'll
be things like doing R&D and
recruiting people to do that
R&D. Recruiting software people
can be a challenge in good times
they're in high demand.
And of course, marketing and
selling, again, pretty much always
a key activity.
If you're in a software business,
think through what are the key
activities that
are going to be critical for you to
be able to succeed at
in your business.
And again, ultimately, we'll be
thinking about how that's going to
drive your cost structure.
And finally, another category of
business might be the platform or a
network, something more than a
software tool, something that's
creating a platform
for people to get work
done, whether that's an eBay
type platform for auctions
or some kind of an e-commerce
platform like an Amazon
for a for selling things, a platform
type play is a little broader
capability.
But still, certainly it's going to
require R&D.
It's going to require platform
management and service provisioning
so that you can service your
customers as the business scales.
And again, as always, marketing
and selling will certainly be key
activities in just about any
business. If this is the thing
that describes your kind of a
business, walk through and
write down the key activities
that are going to be critical in
terms of platform and network
for your business to be successful.
And that's a walk through Key
Activities.
Action Plan in the key
activities section your canvas,
write down what are the
key activities for your business?
Whatever your category is, whether
it's a production problem solving,
software tools or a platform
network, what are the key activities
that you'll have to be good at
in order for your business to be
successful?
That's it for a discussion of key
activities. If this was helpful,
please click the like button and
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And remember, this is part of a
series of playlist of videos
on the business model canvas.
There's a link to the entire
playlist right below me.
Please do check that out.
Aside from that, thank you very much
for watching.