Product Canvas: A communication tool

Phil Araujo - The Product Hero
Product Coalition
Published in
4 min readJan 31, 2018

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One of the toughest parts of working on a product is to give everyone a good overview of what you want to build and why. Especially people who are not on the product team. Marketers and Social Media Managers who have to create a community around the company and the product need to get an overview of what they are selling and communicating about.

During years I worked in product, I learn that one of the skills underrated and also that is the toughest to master is communication. It is why I came up with product canvas a single piece of document that will give you a way to communicate the value of your product to all the teams and stakeholders.

We all work in Product

Whether we have the title or not, the responsibility or not, we all work in product, and we need to have a common understanding of its value.

The problem is that the word “product” is overused and everybody uses it for different reasons. By overusing a word, it lost its power. I define a product as a tool, a software, a piece of content, a material which brings value to someone and solves something which was missing in their life.

Three parts composed the product canvas:

  • History and Problems
  • Ideation and Solution
  • Message and Success

History and Problems

When working on a product on a new idea, I remember first the events and stories. They come from the interviews I made or experienced I lived. It will become the history of the product. The product worked on didn’t appear from nothingness.

It is always the result of experiences, pains or problems. This history is the product roots, and from a marketing point of view, it will give a good starting point for the reflexion on how to communicate about it.

Another part is composing the Genesis which is the audience. It is the people that will use your product, and you are going to sell it to.
From a product point of view, it helps you shape the experience, the tone, the messaging and…

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10+ yrs of expertise into lifestyle wins to empower people from Zero to Hero | 600+ taught successful products philosophy| Real, no fluff! social.philaraujo.com