Can you write a business plan on the back of a napkin?

Hiring a consulting firm to write a hundred-page business plan makes no sense for a startup (or maybe even, um, a university — but I digress).

Things emerge too fast and startups need to stay flexible. But failing to plan is planning to fail. What to do?

Today, students in Entrepreneurship for Lawyers worked through their ideas in the Lean Business Model Canvas. The Lean Canvas gives new ventures a one-page way to identify and visualize key elements of their business, such as:

The Problem

The Solution

The “Unique Value Proposition” you’re providing to the customer

Your key customer profile and early adopters

Any key metrics

Costs and revenue overview

Because it can fit on one page, an entrepreneur can revise and refine their Lean Business Model Canvas as often as needed while they learn and grow. And it points up weaknesses in a heartbeat: If you can’t summarize your Unique Value Proposition in a few words, you probably need to refine your model to make it fly.

So far, we’ve been playing with the methods and mindset of entrepreneurship. As we continue, students will start to focus in on the business ideas they want to pitch at the end of the class — and beyond …