Business Model Canvas: Customer Segments

This second video in our Business Model Canvas Explained series discusses how to complete the Business Model Canvas Customer Segments section. Understanding your customer segments is an important part of your business model design since the customer value proposition is often different for different segments. To focus your marketing, messaging and branding message, it's important to select one segment to focus on initially.

This StartupSOS channel provides practical, how-to advice for new entrepreneurs who plans to build a growth startup with investor funding.

[carleecomm]

Thank you for explaining all this in plain English!

[this.is.lapc]

I would've loved to find your channel 2 years ago. Thanks a lot for this information.

[kagisojeff]

Your videos are amazing and very helpful. Thank you so much for this.

KG from South Africa 🇿🇦

[felixkangwa]

I have been struggling to understand the canvas by watching a variety of videos. Just now...I watched all the nine cells. Followed! I am preparing one on piggery farming. Following you from Zambia! And I was able to follow value proposition. Thanking you

[rakshithamegha]

Hi. I am planning to start up an outsourcing company. I have no education in business or experience in business as such. I am learning on my own. I was struggling to fll the customer segment part in the canvas. This video was very helpful. Thank you for uploading the video.

And please upload a video detailing about Outsourcing business. It will be very helpful. Thank you again.

[maxmullin]

Very well done! Thanks for the clear description of customer segments

[sealyspeak]

Really great content and I just ordered the books to support this also! My question would be if you were thinking of an area of a business (for instance the checkout part of a physical established store) would you:

1. Write out a BMC for both staff & customer (Multi-sided)
2. Then work out your customer segments (assumption-based or data-driven, probably something like 'Autonomous' and 'Likes to be served')
3. Build out the jobs, values (EG:control/autonomy, great service...), pains, gains, etc..
4. Then create a proposition canvas for each customer against each check-out proposition (Served till, Self-CheckOut, Scan & Pay)
5 Then you could change the context of each customer (Add in accessibility need, change shopping mission (big shop/little shop)
6. An then create a VPC for each of the propositions for that customer/context need

I'm just worried there are SO MANY types of customers who need to pay for their goods (ALL!), and their missions change (busy, Xmas shop) - but thinking the context is where we develop a customer, but still ladder up to their core values, jobs, pains, etc...

Hope that makes some sense! Would love to hear some feedback on the approach I'm trying to do...

[jaimefigueroa]

Kudos to you sir, I've heard it by different people. You explain it perfect!

[warrior_cobra]

Thanks sir very good job good bless you help hands Young Entrepreneur and business

[ishajaffer]

Great, simple video. To clarify...if you are not a multi-sided market but have multiple customer segments, do you need a VP for each customer segment and subsequently a different BMC for each customer segment?

[DrKamranIqbal]

Loved it. They way you explained is really simplified and made it easy. God bless you!

[lhizaflora]

very helpful with my school homework...

[sudhirkirodiwal]

Thanks sir keep movementum going on...

[rehedi]

Thanks. As far as i understood, we need different canvas corresponding to each customer segment. Then should we re-define all the cells for each customer segment?

[jabidisawaban]

thank you for the explanation, can we have three customer segment?

[coreykaplan]

Is it common to define a customer segment by multiple methods? For example, I'm starting a business as a client relationship consultant. I am creating my first canvas and have defined a customer segment by b2b demographics (micro-businesses in the health/wellness industry). I'm also considering further defining my first customer segment by psychographic tendencies, such as business lifecycle characterizations. For instance, business owners who want to move from startup to growth. Or, would it be better to keep it to just one way of defining a customer segmentation?

So, ultimately, my customer segment would look like this:
Owner/Operators
of
Micro-businesses (5 or less employees/valued at 250k or less)
in the
Health & Wellness Industries (spas, wellness centers, yoga studios, solopreneurs, etc.)
who want to
Grow their startup

[asishmohandas]

Great Video! If for a product, the users, choosers and who pays the dues are different, then in that case, in the customer segment do we need to identify and put all of them? (since each stakeholder has a specific value proposition they might be interested in.) Or is it just that customer segment broadly defines only the users for the product?

[pranavdeep]

Let us take an example of fully automated restaurant startup. In that case, the important segment could be students, local residents, high tech adapters, local business owners and workers.
In that situation, is it a wise idea to just focus on one particular customer segment. Let us talk about a situation where I’m using paid engine of growth strategy to attract customers to attract customers. Don’t you think we can target multiple customer segment at the same time? Is it really important to place focus on just one customer segment at a particular time? Given the right strategy, we can target multiple customer segment at the same time.
Please enlighten me on this topic. Thank you in advance

[lightningmccarthy]

The part I require help with is Customer Segments which is the first building block of a business model according to the book. The part that is confusing to me is that it mentions "There are different types of Customer Segments. Here are some examples:" it goes on to list 5 different examples which are 1. Mass market 2. Niche Market 3. Segmented 4. Diversified 5. Multi-sided platforms.

Questions I have:

Are these 5 different examples different ways you can classify different customer segments?

Is the "Mass market" example actually a customer segment? Because it says "business models focused on mass markets don't distinguish between different Customer Segments" does that sentence actually not make it a customer segment since it does not focus on customer Segments?

Could you consider age, behaviour, or geography different types of Customer Segments?

[manalghanem]

what are the customer segments for a theme park such as fossil fun park