Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition Carlos E Peña

Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition Carlos E. Peña Senior Loan Officer 3/1/2017

What is a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)? • UVP is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer's needs and what distinguishes you from the competition • A value proposition is a business or marketing statement that a company uses to summarize why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement convinces a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings • A short statement that encompasses the services you provide and how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. 2

A Few Examples • Small Business Accounting Software Designed For You, The Non-Accountant (Fresh. Books) • A Great Shave For a Few Bucks a Month (Dollar Shave Club) • We Help The World’s Biggest Brands Scale And Secure Word. Press (Pagely) • The Easiest Way To Make a Website (Weebly) • Bring Everything You Need Without Checking a Bag (Tortuga Backpacks) • Send Better Email (Mailchimp)

Why should I have a UVP? • Engage your consumers and deliver your message • Explain your business model to investors in a concise way • Understand what key activities drive your company’s growth • Effectively articulate your mission to potential partners • Formulate business strategy with a clear mission 4

Business Model Canvas 5

Template Canvas 6

Example Canvas 7

Exercise • Take 10 minutes and create a canvas for your business. • Create your canvas based on what you envision the business to be at its full potential (as opposed to in its startup phase) • Start from either the Value Proposition or Customer Segments boxes and then branch out (however you see fit) • Understand your customer segment. Ideally you identify your segment broadly but also identify early adopters (EA). Examples: § Pregnant couples (EA: first time parents) § Immigrants (EA: immigrants from a specific region/background) § Econ Development Institutions (EA: early-stage enterprise incubators) • If you can’t think of what to populate certain boxes with just leave the box blank. 8

Canvas Exercise Continued • Which box did you start from? • What were the easiest boxes to populate? • Any blank boxes? It’s ok. • Canvas Exchange (optional) 9

Creating a UVP • Where to start? • End-User Driven – Specify consumer, identify pain point, ideate product/service • Activity Driven – Select skill/role, determine pain point, narrow down user • Mission Driven – Commit to goal (which counters pain point), explain theory of change, highlight beneficiary • Components § Activity § Delivery § Target 10

Value Proposition Canvas 11

Takeaways • Which method did you take? • What insights have you gained? • Which (if any) of your assumptions has changed? 12

Carlos E. Peña Senior Loan Officer cpena@accionchicago. org 312 -924 -2185