Channels, delivered.
In context: Stage 04 · Evaluate · Business model canvas
How the value proposition actually reaches the buyer, from first awareness through to the box on the doorstep.
The Channels block sets out how a business reaches its segments across the full journey: awareness, evaluation, purchase, delivery and after-sales. Get it right and the offer lands in front of the right people, in the right way. Get it wrong and a good product never gets seen.
What this block is
Channels describe how a business reaches its customer segments to deliver the value proposition. They run across the whole journey, not just the moment of sale: how buyers become aware of the offer, how they evaluate it, how they purchase, how the product is delivered, and how they are looked after afterwards. A channel is any touchpoint where the business and the buyer meet.
The honest question this block forces is a simple one: by what route does the offer actually get in front of the people who want it, and is that route one you can reach, afford and trust? An excellent product down the wrong channel is, commercially, a quiet product.
How it applies
For the £149 sourdough proofing box, I treated the direct-to-consumer web store as the primary channel: it owns the margin, the data and the relationship. The Sourdough School community sits alongside it as a discovery channel, putting the box in front of an audience who already care about reliable proofing rather than strangers who need convincing it matters.
Delivery runs through a fulfilment partner, so the product reaches the doorstep without me building a warehouse. Select UK retail is a possible later move, once the direct route has proven the demand and the unit economics. No sense handing a slice of margin to a shelf before the thing has earned one.
Where it fits
Channels is one of the nine blocks of the Business Model Canvas, and it sits next to Customer relationships and Customer segments: who you reach, how you reach them, and how you keep them. See how the blocks lock together on the Business model diagram.
Try it yourself
Take your own offer and list every route a buyer could travel from first hearing about it to receiving it. Mark which ones you actually control, which cost the most, and which you have never tested. The gaps are usually where the sales quietly leak away.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint walks the canvas with you, block by block. Start the Free Sprint →
The Business Model Canvas is the work of Strategyzer (Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence. Source: strategyzer.com.
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