Pimp your Business Model - Do it yourself

Hourray ! You decided to organize a Pimp your Business Model, here is how we do and the tools we use.

If we can be of any assistance or advice : and if you want to share the results or methods you used during a workshop :

What it is

What is a Pimp your Business Model

A workshop gathering mentors who answer a business model question for a project equipped with tools and methods.

How it works

A remote phase to get to know each other and start discussing the case and a live phase : 2-hours workshop.

What are the results

Pimp You Business Model helps to formulate and qualify ideas on an existing business model that want (or need) to change. At the end, the project has new ideas and an action plan to test and experiment them.

For the mentors, the benefit is to meet other mentors, to use and test new methodologies they can employ for their own venture.

How to

1 – Identify a model to Pimp

Here are some clues to find the good candidate :

you have in mind a very old-fashionned or inefficient business model
you lead a company and you feel like investigating new growth opportunities

2 – Identify a group of mentors

Well, you have a question, that’s great ! Now you need some folks to answer it. Here are some ways to gather a dream team :

the entrepreneurs that lead the venture you will be working on often have mentors around them, so you can ask them to join. The advantage of this group is they know pretty much the project.
the question itself can help you identify people : who do we know around us that solved (or tried to solve) the question.
the industry can be a source too : what other companies are related to the new venture. Which may have a direct interest to the success of the venture

3 – Plan and prepare the workshop

You have the team and the question, now it’s time to prepare : choose a convenient date for the maximum (not all) of the mentors.

You should also design the sequence of the workshop. For that you may organise a 2-hours skype call with the facilitators of the workshop to pick in the tools and methods, the appropriate set.

And of course you draft the existing business model

4 – Start discussing

A couple of weeks before the workshop you start a discussion online with the mentors :

you present the existing business model to pimp
you ask everyone to introduce himself and ask a question like : how bad this business model is

5 – Facilitate the workshop

Here is an example of scheduling :

15 minutes – Informal discussions to wait everyone to arrive.
15 minutes – Presentation of the business model to pimp and of the synthesis of the online discussion
1 hour – three to four steps
20 minutes – open discussion on the experiments to lead.
10 minutes – wrap up and conclusion

6 – Conclude

The day after, mail to the participants the link to the documents used and produced