Last Friday I was part of the committee for a Masters Thesis defense on business model design at the HEC Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Boris Fritscher, whom I previously mentioned on this blog, defended his thesis “Business Model Designer From Sticky Note To Screen Interaction”. For his dissertation Boris developed a web-based business model design tool under the guidance of Professor Yves Pigneur, my co-author for an upcoming book on business model innovation.
Boris did an outstanding job combining business relevance with software development. You can check out his presentation and thesis below or on his website. You can also look into a non-interactive demo of his business model design tool. It allows capturing, storing and designing business models (read about it in the dissertation). Boris is not yet opening up the tool to the public, though many readers of my blog have already asked me for access. If we show him how much we want/need this tool he will hopefully change his mind and allow some testers access to an alpha/beta version. Isn’t it, Boris 
So post a comment to this blog if you think this is relevant!
Have a look at Boris’ thesis. It is really interesting and I believe it points us to the future of business model innovation: one where paper based brainstorming is combined and complemented with the advantages of computer aided business model design.
And here the slides Boris presented during his thesis defense:
Alex, thanks for sharing this information. It would definitely be great to test Boris’s application, and perhaps he would be open to a biz model similar to what you’ve put in place for the book. I’m sure many of the people who are a part of that community would join something similar to have access to the tool.
So Boris, if you’re reading this, we want to try out the application! Let us know how we can do that. Thanks!
I couldn’t agree more with Jeff (and with your arm twisting Alex!
An application like this would be a valuable tool, but needs the input of a wider group of users before ready for the wrold at large. We are that group of users.
It would make a material difference to a city wide innovation project I am part of.
I am a master student doing an internship at a large telecommunications company and working on business model and business processes. I am very interested in using this Business Model Designer tool. Could I have access to it? Thanks!
I am a PhD student working with Business – IT alignment and I am very interested to know and use this Business Model Designer tool.
Hi Boris, the more you make your tool available the more it can improve. This strategy can sure be plugged into the strategy I am currently working on, so I would sure be willing to help with comments. Thanks!!!
Hi Alex..
The tool is simply mind moving. I hope u remeber we had some mail conversation on business model design a year ago. Iam eagerly waiting for this product to get launched. When can i expect this tool…
Krishna
interesting… is it an educational tool or more of a business-oriented one?
Would love to have a look
How did Boris approached the project? How he balance the IT tech and the business modelling? I am working on a stakeholder management conceptual model, and wondering whether it is a good idea to develop it into a tool.
Keep us posted
Hi Alex and Boris,
I am working in a start-up company dealing with ecological footwear.
Even after writing tons of business plans, it still is hard for me to communicate the interdependencies, challenges and opportunities of the business, if talk are getting deeper into the business model. After seeing your presentation, I somehow got to understand why a “business plan” is a necessary tool for raising money but rather inappropriate for communication and visualization.
Congratulations for your work! As Alex suggested, it would be great of you to offer some limited access to the system. And you certainly need some user feedback, don’t you?
Thanks and bye,
Michael (a willing beta-tester)
Dear all, I saw Boris today and there are good and bad news. The good ones: Boris will indeed work on a basic public version. The bad news: It won’t be before April, because he is booked with work up to his nose and he has to serve the country (Switzerland) for 3 weeks…
This would be a great tool for new businesses, how do we get access to it?
Nancy Workman
I would love to see it become public. In fact I think combining it with something like the Johnny Lee WII remove hack would be incredibly powerful!
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html
It’s something I’ve been thinking about building for awhile since reading your Business Model Innovation paper, of course time constraints…
Any news about the potential release?
I will announce the beta release of this tool on Monday 29th of June