If the Mandalorian showed value proposition to Disney+

How would Din Djarin Use the Business Model Canvas

Justin Jolley
UX Collective
Published in
7 min readJun 2, 2020

I’m working with my team to document the process for using various experience design methodologies and I wanted a way to share with them how to provide the Value Proposition for a project/feature. So…knowing my audience, I wanted to put this in terms that they would appreciate.

If your teams are anything like mine there are waves of pop culture that surf through your organization. Star Wars, Marvel, LoTR, etc. One of those waves is now crashing upon our shores. You know that period before a meeting starts when you’re waiting for everyone to gather. There’s usually some light-hearted banter about this and that. Well, our (now virtual) team meetings are periodically kindled with excitement of the latest Mandalorian episode. I think Disney plus has been a hit by this measure alone. If we can combine learning a new concept Business Model Canvas (BMC) with something fun (Mandalorian) I think it helps things make more sense.

One way we can show the value proposition for a project or feature is by using the Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool, which allows you to develop and sketch out new or existing business models. It is a nine block visual model that represents parts of a business model. It can be useful in putting some thinking around your product and feature ideas.

Din must earn bounties in order to pay his expenses, maintain his ship and build a suit of armor. This is much like many of our companies today. We have expenses we have to pay, we have costs associated with maintaining our offices and products while searching to add additional features to our suite of products (suit of armor).

The nine sections are;

  1. Key Partners
  2. Key Activities
  3. Key Resources
  4. Value Proposition
  5. Customer Relationships
  6. Channels
  7. Customer Segments
  8. Cost Structure
  9. Revenue Streams

Let’s take a look at the details of each of these sections. I’ll get you started on the first couple and you go through the exercise of defining these for the Mandalorian or your favorite fandom.

Key Partners

Who are our key partners? This changes from time to time with Din as one minute someone may be helping with his quest and the next they may be trying to kill him.

• Baby Yoda
• Armorer
• Kuiil
• IG-11
• Cara Dune

Who are our key suppliers?
• Greef Karga supplies Din with work in collecting bounties.
• Jawas are suppliers even though they stole the parts from his ship.

Which key resources are we acquiring from partners?
• Beskar Steel
• Pauldron & Cuirass (armor pieces)

Which key activities do partners perform?
• Connecting to bounties from clients
• Forging Pauldron armor from Beskar Steel provided from securing bounties

Motivations for Partnerships
Optimization and economy -Din must partner with Greef to bring in bounties even though Greef attacks him for freeing Baby Yoda.
Reduction of risk and uncertainty -Din partners with IG-11 in order to help fight his way into obtaining the child/Baby Yoda. Yet that relationship is complicated as well because he turns on him as well.
Acquisition of particular resources and activities -Din needs activities (bounty hunting) in order to obtain particular resources (Beskar Steel/Armor).

Key Activities

What key activities do our value propositions require?

Customer relationships?

Categories
• Production -Hunting down bounties, converting Beskar into armor
• Problem Solving -how to get parts from the Jawas for his ship, driving off a band of Klatoonian raiders for lodging.
• Platform/Network -bounty hunting network of customers (Imperial connections) and bounty hunters.

Key Resources

What key resources do our value proposition require?
Our distribution channels?
Customer relationships? Revenue Streams?

Types of Resources
• Physical -Beskar, Food, Fuel, Armor, Bounty discs
• Intellectual (brand patents, copyrights, data) Bounty disc data
• Human -Key partners
• Financial -Credits and Beskar

Value Proposition

What value do we deliver to the customer?
Delivering bounties, baby Yoda.

Which one of our customer’s problems are we helping to solve?
Trying to find bounties, baby Yoda

What bundles of products and services are we offering to each customer segment?

Which customer needs are we satisfying? -Cost reduction, risk reduction, performance, customization. By hiring the bounty hunter (Din) one of the primary needs he is satisfying is “Getting the job done”. That’s why people come back again and again to the bounty hunters as they know they can get the job done.

• Newness
• Performance
• Customization
• “Getting the job done”
• Design
• Brand Status
• Price
• Cost Reduction
• Risk Reduction
• Accessibility
• Convenience/Usability

Customer Relationships

What type of relationship does each of our customer segments expect us to establish and maintain with them?
Which ones have we established?
How are they integrated with the rest of our business model?
How costly are they?

Examples
• Personal Assistance
• Dedicated Personal Assistance
• Self-Service
• Automated Service
• Communities
• Co-Creation

Channels

Through which channels do our customer segments want to be reached? How are we reaching them now? How are our channels integrated? Which ones are most cost-effective? How are we integrating them with customer routines?

Channel Phases
1. Awareness
2. Evaluation
3. Purchase
4. Delivery
5. After Sales

Customer Segments

For whom are we creating value?
Who are our most important customers?

•Mass Market
• Niche Market
• Segmented
• Diversified
• Multi-Sided Platform

Cost Structure

What are the most important costs inherent in our business model?

Which key resources are most expensive?

Which key activities are most expensive?

Is your business more
• Cost driven (leanest cost structure, low price value proposition, maximum automation, extensive outsourcing)
• Value Driven (focused on value creation, premium value proposition)

Sample Characteristics
• Fixed Costs (salaries, rents, utilities)
• Variable Costs
• Economies of scale
•Economies of scope

Revenue Streams

For what value are our customers really willing to pay?
For what do they currently pay?
How are they currently paying?
How would they prefer to pay?
How much does each revenue stream contribute to overall revenues?

Types
• Asset Sale
• Usage/Subscription Fee
• Lending/Renting/Leasing/Licensing
• Brokerage Fees / Advertising

Fixed Pricing
• List Price
• Product Feature
• Customer Segment
• Dependent, Volume

Dynamic Pricing
• Negotiation
• Yield Management
• Real-Time-Market

If we ask ourselves what is the purpose or the value of creating a value proposition we can sum it up by saying that a value proposition tells prospective customers why they should do business with you rather than your competitors, and makes the benefits of your products or services more clear from the initial discussion.

If we set the value proposition early on in a project whether we are trying to build a suit of armor or adding a new product or feature each member of our teams will have a better understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish and the value we provide to customers through designing and developing it. For experienced designers it is especially important to know so we can focus on what is setting us apart from our competition and what values are our customers expecting.

We can then create OKR’s or KPI’s around the values to see if what we are producing is increasing or decreasing our objectives. If Din’s goal is to gain a suit of armor, deliver bounties, rescue baby Yoda, then we can track that over time and measure to see if we are on track with our initial guidance for his team or if he needs to adjust something in order to provide actual value to his customers.

This really is an important step as I’ve heard it over and over from designers and developers, “Why are we building this?” or “How do I know if i’m building the right thing?”. It’s important to have this guiding document to make sure we’re pointing in the right direction as things shift and we need a fresh reminder to help us remember why we are doing what we are doing?

I’m reminded of this from listening to the sage advice from Mr. Simon Sinek. As Sinek puts it, “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” Starting with “why” helps us deliver something of greater value to customers and organizations. If you’re struggling with filling out a basic business model canvas to determine your value proposition you may want to ask if this is really the most important thing for us to be working on.

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Justin Jolley

Customer Champion, UX Leader, Business Designer, Researcher and Strategists and Human Experience Designer

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