The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a tool that can help relate the several activities in the development of a business idea. In particular, it can be helpful in defining the relationship between your value proposition and who your customers are, as well as in identifying the main activities that can provide the success of your ideas. BMC was proposed by Alexander Osterwalder, following his PhD thesis in “Informatique de Gestion” at the University of Lausanne.

You can download your copy of BMC from Strategyzer’s website (you will have to supply them your contact email), as well as a short manual on how to use it. For more in-depth details, a full book is available on the subject:

OSTERWALDER, Alexander; PIGNEUR, Yves. Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

At the time of writing this, a search for this book on Google Scholar returned a link to a book preview in pdf (temporary link, though).