Product Canvas

How to create a Product Canvas?

Creating a Product Canvas is much easier than fixing a mess after you’ve started doing something without a clearly defined and discussed idea. We have a quick guide for creating your own document so that you can start working on your product development asap.

Remember that the xTiles Product Canvas Template is flexible and adaptable to your product’s or your vision of the product’s specific needs and features. You’re free to add or remove sections in order to adjust the template document.

Create a Product Canvas for your project using the xTiles template and the next steps:

1. What is your product name? Do you have one already? Will it have some hidden meaning? Will it refer to the problem your product solves? Naming is very important for the rest of your product’s cohesiveness.

It should be easy to remember, maybe a bit “sticky” so that people keep repeating that word or collocation in their minds without realizing it. That is one of the basic rules for naming a product.

You may have the name when you start making your Product Canvas. However, if you still haven’t come up with something nice and suitable, try brainstorming with your team.

2. Now you need to define the business goals of your product. What key goals should it achieve? It may be revenue growth, market share, customer retention, etc. If you already have a product roadmap, this step won’t take more than a minute.

While defining your main goals, remember that every product is unique, so copying your competitors’ goals is sometimes not the best option, as it might lead you in the wrong direction.

3. Next, you will need to set the key metrics. These metrics will help you understand whether you’ve reached your goal or not. It may be metrics such as user engagement, conversion rates, revenue, etc.

It’s crucial to make them realistic. Many teams prefer to challenge themselves by setting metric numbers that are too high or impossible to reach with the current level of their skills, budget, etc. However, such an approach rather leads to losing all motivation.

4. The next step is identifying your product’s target audience. For whom do you work? Who do you want to help or satisfy?

Defining what problem your product is about to resolve is the first stage of knowing your target customers. Usually, it’s an ongoing process that needs continuous research to stay up-to-date with the changing market trends and user behaviors.

5. We’re almost done. Now, you need to plan what your finished product will look like and what it will bring you in the long term. It will help to check the data you’ve just written down.

All points of your Product Canvas should be aligned with each other. Otherwise, your team might be misled with no defined plan of where to move.

6. Finally, you will need to define the next steps you will take to start implementing everything you’ve just discussed and identified. That point will evolve into your action plan, keeping the connection with the Product Canvas.

Once you have created your Product Canvas, share it with everyone involved to get feedback. It may happen that after their review, you will need to refine it or change some parts of it. When the document is validated, use it to your advantage. Let it not lie somewhere forgotten.

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