Bmc Economic Prototyping

BMC Economic Prototyping

Purpose

Fixes the single most common failure mode in BMC facilitation: a team fills Value Proposition and Customer Segments with real energy for an hour, then waves hands at Revenue Streams and Cost Structure ("we'll figure out pricing later"). This skill forces the economics into a live, testable form in the SAME session the canvas is first sketched — not after the rest of the model feels "done." Use this at the start of BMC work, alongside bmc-session-facilitation-design, not as a later add-on.

Anchored in research

Ash Maurya's Lean Canvas (Running Lean, 2012) deliberately gives Revenue Streams and Cost Structure more prominence than the original Osterwalder BMC precisely because teams routinely skip them — this skill applies that same discipline inside a standard BMC session rather than switching canvases. The willingness-to-pay test step draws on the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, an established four-question market-research technique for finding a defensible price band without a large budget. General pricing-validation practice (A/B price offers, price-anchoring conversations) is standard Lean Startup / Strategyzer material.

Method

1. Build the numbers artifact immediately, not the wording. As soon as a first-draft Value Proposition and primary Customer Segment exist — even roughly — open a simple spreadsheet (not a slide) with five fields: assumed price point(s), realistic near-term volume, unit cost, contribution margin per unit, and breakeven volume. This is a prototype of the ECONOMICS, not a business plan — five numbers, updated live as the session continues.
2. Ask the "big enough" question before refining anything else. At the assumed price and a realistic (not optimistic) volume, does the resulting revenue reach a size that actually matters to this specific business? A technically profitable model that tops out at a trivial revenue ceiling is a different problem than an unprofitable one — name which problem this is before moving on.
3. Design a minimal willingness-to-pay (WTP) test, matched to stage:
   • Very early / no product yet — a price-anchoring conversation with 5-10 real prospects: ask what they currently pay for the closest alternative, then test reactions to 2-3 concrete price points (not "would you pay X?" — people say yes to be polite; ask "what would make X too expensive?" and "what would make X feel too cheap to trust?", the two anchor questions from the Van Westendorp method).
   • Early, some credibility — a fake-door landing page offering 2-3 price tiers with a real "get started" button; measure which tier gets clicked, not just whether anyone visits.
   • Enough credibility to ask for money — a real pre-order or refundable deposit at the target price; nothing tests willingness to pay like an actual ask for payment.
4. Convert fantasy numbers into evidence, explicitly. Watch for unexamined anchors in the room: "everyone would pay $X for this," "the market rate is obviously $Y." Each time one of these surfaces, ask directly: "is this a number we've tested, or a number we're hoping is true?" Mark it on the canvas accordingly (see bmc-canvas-diagnostic-reading's evidence grade check, DR-04) — an untested price anchor is exactly the kind of assumption that check is designed to catch, and this skill is where it should be caught first.
5. Timing rule. Do steps 1-2 in the SAME session as the first canvas draft — the same day, ideally the same meeting. Economics discussed a week later, after the team has emotionally invested in the value proposition, gets rationalized instead of tested.
6. Update the prototype as new information arrives. This is not a one-time spreadsheet — every WTP test result, every cost estimate that firms up, goes back into the same five fields. The prototype's job is to always reflect the team's current best evidence, visibly.

What this skill does NOT do

• Doesn't build a full financial model, ROI case, or NPV/IRR analysis — for that, hand off to business-case-and-analysis/roi-npv-sensitivity-model once the model has moved past the canvas stage. This skill's five-field prototype is deliberately minimal; a full business case is a separate, later step.
• Doesn't replace real market research for a pricing decision that carries major risk — the WTP tests here are fast and cheap by design, which means they're directional evidence, not a substitute for formal pricing research when the stakes justify one.
• Doesn't tell you what price to charge — it forces the team to have evidence for whichever price they choose, not a specific number.

Refinement notes

• What's the most common "we'll figure out pricing later" excuse you hear, and what's the fastest way you've found to interrupt it?
• Which WTP test format (anchoring conversation, fake-door page, pre-order) has actually produced the most reliable signal in your own engagements?
• What's a real example where the "big enough" question killed an otherwise-loved idea early — and was that the right call in hindsight?

Continue from here

• Use alongside: bmc-session-facilitation-design/SKILL.md — do this during the same first session, not after.
• Feeds into: bmc-channel-economics-check/SKILL.md (channel CAC vs. the price/margin this skill establishes) and bmc-revenue-quality-scoring/SKILL.md (scoring the resilience of the revenue streams priced here).
• Full financial modeling: ../../../../business-case-and-analysis/skills/roi-npv-sensitivity-model/SKILL.md.
• This pack's shared guardrails: ../../CLAUDE.md

References

• ../../references/bmc-source-material-notes.md — source material background
• ../../references/bmc-resilience-heuristics-research.md — selection and grounding notes for this skill and its siblings
• ../../CLAUDE.md — this pack's shared guardrails