These are not your standard daily operational checklists (like "turning on the lights" or "answering emails"). Instead, these are the high-leverage, strategic actions required to fulfill your value proposition, reach your customers, and maintain your revenue streams.
Key Activities are the critical tasks your team performs to make your business model work. They are not every single thing you do in a day—like checking email or buying coffee—but rather the high-level processes required to: your Value Proposition. Reach your target markets. Maintain Customer Relationships. Generate Revenue. If a Key Activity stops, the business model fails. 📋 The Three Primary Categories
When drafting Key Activities, businesses often make the following mistakes:
The most common mistake entrepreneurs make is listing everything their business does. That is an operations manual, not a business model. key activities business model
How do you get the product to the user? If you sell through a retail chain, and Relationship Building are vital. What do our Customer Relationships require?
Identify the single most important thing the customer is paying for.
Looking at household brands helps clarify how Key Activities shift depending on the business model: Netflix (Platform/Network Model) These are not your standard daily operational checklists
to your Cost Structure and Key Resources .
By defining these clearly, you can decide what to (core competencies) and what to outsource (non-key activities) to partners, allowing your business to scale faster.
Successful CEOs don't just know their value proposition; they know their by heart. They hire people to do everything else. They are not every single thing you do
These activities relate to designing, making, and delivering a product in substantial quantities and/or superior quality.
Your activities must directly build the value you promise to customers. If your value proposition is "fastest delivery," your key activity is logistics management. If your value proposition is "highest data security," your key activity is continuous encryption updates. Key Resources
If your Value Proposition is the destination and your Revenue Streams are the fuel , your are the engine . Without a clear understanding of your most critical operational actions, your business will spin its wheels, wasting time and capital on tasks that don't drive value.
These activities focus on managing, maintaining, and optimizing a software platform, network, or marketplace.
