Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Pre-PMF Fieldnote, month 4, Élise and Karim rewrite the canvas after the first 10 customers.
What the team took away
The riskiest assumption was moved to the top: technicians logging parts themselves. Everything else depends on it.
How to run it
Preparation
Founders and PM only, three to five people. A Lean Canvas with ten people becomes a negotiation.
Ask each founder to fill their own canvas alone the day before, in 20 minutes, without checking with the others. The differences are the workshop.
Paste the last 30 days of numbers you have (signups, conversations, churn) on the side. Even rough numbers stop the 'I think' loop.
Set a timer visible to everyone: this canvas is meant to be fast and rewritten, not perfect.
Agenda
20 min
Compare the solo versions Put the individual canvases side by side. Circle every block where founders disagree. Those blocks get the time; the others are copied as is.
25 min
Problem and segments Top 3 problems, ranked, with the existing alternative for each. Then the early adopter: a specific person you could call today, not a market.
20 min
UVP and solution Write the UVP as a headline a stranger would understand in 5 seconds. Only then list the minimum solution, one feature per problem.
25 min
Channels, revenue, costs, metrics Fill fast, 5 minutes per block. One key metric only: the number that tells you the engine works. Revenue must have a price on it, even a guess.
10 min
Unfair advantage Something that cannot be bought or copied in six months. If the block is empty, write 'none yet' honestly; it is a finding, not a failure.
20 min
Riskiest assumptions Each person picks the one block that, if wrong, kills the business. Vote. The top 2 leave the room with a test and a date.
Pitfalls
Starting with the Solution block is the classic mistake. Cover it with a sticky until Problem, Segments and UVP are done.
A customer segment that is a market ('restaurants') cannot be interviewed. Name the early adopter precisely enough to find ten of them this week.
Do not polish. If the canvas takes more than two hours, you are writing a business plan. Ship v1 and rewrite it after ten interviews.
Afterwards
The canvas lives in the founders' shared doc and gets rewritten every four to six weeks. The two riskiest assumptions go straight into Assumption mapping or an Experiment board.