Back to all postsTop 7 Business Model Canvas Examples in 2024
Dec 18 • 10 min read
Looking at the blank business model canvas, you might start wondering the best way to describe your business using this template. In these situations, looking at examples can be a great way to get started and create your own canvas.
This article will go through examples of a business model canvas for some of the most successful companies in 2024. We specifically curated companies that are well-known, so you will probably have a good intuition for their business model. Looking at the filled-in canvases below, you will see which goes where and how to go beyond the blank whiteboard.
How to Use Examples of the Business Model Canvas
Here are a few tips that can help you get the most out of the examples below.
Emerging Trends
Look for repeating patterns across different companies. One example is the leverage of AI technologies in most of the companies on our list. However, patterns could be observed in evolving customer needs, emerging channels for reaching out to your customers, and new types of activities performed.
Consider the Value Proposition
It’s interesting to observe how different companies define their value proposition and how they communicate it with their target customers. Technically, the same product can address different customer needs, which shows how important it is to think on each level of the canvas.
Embrace the Industry Context
There are no two canvases that are the same. Each canvas incorporates the unique challenges of its industry and the product that it describes. Looking at several canvases in the same industry can show repeating patterns that are valid for the whole sector.
Regardless of how useful these canvases are, they are not a substitute for conducting your own customer research with actual potential customers. The success or lack of success of a company in a given industry doesn’t validate or invalidate your own idea.
NVidia
Year Established: 1993
CEO: Jensen Huang
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA
Industry: Semiconductors, AI, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)
Stock Ticker: NVDA
Insights
NVidia has been one of the fastest-growing companies in the past few years, replacing giants like Intel in the most prestigious charts and indexes, like the Dow Index. The company's continued success is due to its transformation from mainly targeting gamers to crypto mining and later to the AI industry.
Twenty years ago, the business model canvas (BMC) of NVidia would have looked significantly different, with a primary focus on gamers and providing immersive visual experiences on different platforms. As of now, it’s entirely oriented towards AI technologies.
This success is fueled by the increasing amount of AI companies, especially those doing deep research work and training new models. All of them require significant amounts of hardware to support their work.
Microsoft
Year Established: 1975
CEO: Satya Nadella
Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, USA
Industry: Technology, Software, Cloud Computing
Stock Ticker: MSFT
Insights
One of the key partnerships that Microsoft built in 2022 and 2023 with OpenAI continues to fuel its success in 2024. Thanks to the elevated access to OpenAI’s products, Microsoft quickly leveraged AI technologies in a huge part of their existing portfolio, such as Azure Cloud Services and Office 365, which gave them a strong unfair advantage against competitors.
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the previous years strengthened the company's strategy in the gaming industry. As of now, Microsoft has one of the most diversified revenue streams, which creates high resilience for the years ahead.
Apple
Year Established: 1976
CEO: Tim Cook
Headquarters: Cupertino, California, USA
Industry: Technology, Consumer Electronics, Software
Stock Ticker: AAPL
Insights
Thanks to its strong customer relationships and amazing customer support, Apple has traditionally had one of the most loyal customer bases. Even though the company is focusing primarily on sustainable innovation, this still results in strong revenue streams. All major Apple products like phones, laptops, tablets, and watches continuously receive more productive chips that have a smaller impact on the battery life and provide a better user experience.
Following the industry trends set by other companies, Apple also released AI-enhanced products through Apple Intelligence.
TikTok
Year Established: 2016
CEO: Shou Zi Chew
Headquarters: Culver City, California, USA (Global Operations) / Beijing, China (Parent Company: ByteDance)
Industry: Social Media, Technology
Stock Ticker: Not publicly traded (Parent company: ByteDance)
Insights
TikTok continues to be the leading platform for short-form videos. Thanks to the newly introduced integrations with e-commerce platforms, they continue to provide strong value propositions for content creators and influencers.
It’s increasingly becoming an important channel for big brands and companies to reach out to their customer segment, especially if the segment is targeting a younger audience.
The success of TikTok creates a typical example of the Innovator’s Dilemma for established players in their space such as YouTube. TikTok benefits from not having existing products to be worried about, while YouTube needs to strike the right balance between regular videos and short videos without jeopardizing their current revenue stream, which is a significant income for the Alphabet company as a whole.
Netflix
Year Established: 1997
CEO: Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters (Co-CEOs)
Headquarters: Los Gatos, California, USA
Industry: Entertainment, Streaming Media
Stock Ticker: NFLX
Insights
According to Statista, Netflix still dominates the video streaming market. Even though all companies on the market face some headwinds after the strong growth during the COVID pandemic, Netflix creates stickiness with high-quality content. Their strong leading positions are due to the expansion to new markets like Asia and Latin America.
A great example of expanding into new customer segments is targeting sports fans by streaming different sports events. Netflix piloted with the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, which was followed by securing the rights for WWE’s weekly “Monday Night Raw”.
Airbnb
Year Established: 2008
CEO: Brian Chesky
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA
Industry: Travel, Hospitality, Technology
Stock Ticker: ABNB
Insights
Airbnb started as a very simple idea: gain additional income by sharing part of your property with strangers who are looking for more accessible stays during high-demand periods.
Through the years, this simple idea evolved into a complex marketplace of travelers, hosts, property managers, and experienced organizers. But at some point, host and travelers’ satisfaction started dropping due to increasing pain points.
Brian Chesky has shown great leadership in recent days, bringing the product back to its basics and focusing on delivering core value to the customers (in this case, both hosts and guests).
In the past two years, the platform significantly improved its user experience, focusing on features that users loved in the yearly days - finding unique properties at reasonable prices while adapting to market conditions and facilitating long-term stays and business travels.
Uber
Year Established: 2009
CEO: Dara Khosrowshahi
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA
Industry: Transportation, Mobility, Technology
Stock Ticker: UBER
Insights
Lately, Uber's company strategy can be described in one word: diversification. The company continued expanding its partnerships with big retailers for grocery delivery, as well as local restaurants and cafes for their food delivery services.
Uber also kept being customer-focused, identified emerging customer preferences related to eco-consciousness, and invested in more sustainable vehicles in its fleet. Riding the AI trend, they also invested in autonomous driving, launching this service in selected regions. This development is a great example of how the current wave of technology is shaping the products of the future.
How can Icanpreneur help you + Wrap Up
These examples may leave you thinking that it’s impossible to build such a great company nowadays, keeping in mind competition, market conditions, and ever-changing customer needs.
In reality, all these companies were built by people like you from the ground up. It might be very hard, but it’s not impossible.
Icanpreneur is a platform that can help you get from an idea to a successful business. While many of the companies above were built thanks to the amazing intuition and business feel of their founders - you don’t have to have the “entrepreneurial gene” to do the same.
You can significantly increase your chances of getting to market success by following a structured approach and being supported by the latest AI technologies. Filling in your canvas is the first phase of the entrepreneurial journey at Icanpreneur, and the canvas becomes the true home for evolving and improving your ideas based on real-world feedback from potential customers.
FAQ
The business model canvas is a tool to express and communicate your business in a structured way that can be easily understood by other stakeholders.
The nine building blocks of the Business Model Canvas are:
- Key Partnerships
- Key Activities
- Key Resources
- Channels
- Customer Relationships
- Value Proposition
- Customer Segments
- Cost Structure
- Revenue Streams
There are many ways to approach the creation of your business model canvas. Many dashboard platforms like Miro and Figjam provide business model canvas templates you can start with.
However, these platforms usually lack or provide limited guidance, and starting from a blank canvas may feel intimidating, even for seasoned entrepreneurs and product builders. The Icanpreneur platform breaks down the canvas into nine tasks and adapts it for starting a new product or business. These tasks include guidance, examples, and suggestions generated specifically for your business idea according to the best practices.
Even more importantly, the platform provides feedback on the extent to which you define the different components of the canvas according to the best practices. If you have ever wondered, “Is this a good definition for a customer segment?” - the Icanpreneur Virtual Assistant (IVA) will give you actionable feedback.
The Lean Canvas is an adapted version of the Business Model Canvas, which, in most cases, is more suitable for startups. The Icanpreneur platform created an interactive environment where you can work on your canvas together with your team, empowered by the best practices and innovative tools that will help you get it done. Read more about the differences between the Lean Canvas and the Business Model Canvas.
The Business Model Canvas helps you provide a holistic overview of your business in a standard format that is easy for other people to understand. While people usually focus on two or three aspects of their business, like customer segment and value proposition, the Business Model Canvas serves as a good reminder about all other things that need to be considered when explaining your business.
The Business Model Canvas is never set in stone. It’s a living document that needs to reflect the current state of your business.
Every time you learn something new based on an experiment or customer feedback, it should be included in the canvas.
Author
Emil TabakovProduct @ Icanpreneur. Coursera instructor, Guest Lecturer @ Product School and Telerik Academy. Angel Investor. Product manager with deep experience in building innovative products from zero to millions of users.
