Free Startup Business Value Proposition Template

A value proposition, also known as Unique Value Proposition (UVP), is a short statement that perfectly describes your products and/or services. A value proposition statement should convey to customers why they should choose your products and/or services over your competitors.  

A strong value proposition should accurately explain the core benefits of your business’s products and/or services in a concise and compelling manner.

An effective value proposition should be unique, engaging and memorable. It should focus on your customers and highlight how your business can solve their problems or address their needs.

A value proposition canvas is a visual framework that connects your company’s value proposition with your customer profiles to help you identify how your business provides value within the market. It helps you analyse your products/services alongside customer pains and gains to see how they connect. 

Our value proposition canvas template helps you explore these factors side-by-side, including:

• Customer Pains: what problems/pains are they looking to solve?
• Customer Gains: what are they hoping to achieve? 

A value proposition is designed for external purposes and is most commonly used by sales and marketing teams to help sell products and/or services to customers. It can also be used by startups when pitching to investors for funding. 

A value proposition is usually a single sentence and shouldn’t be confused with taglines, brand positioning or mission statements, even though it can relate to and influence both.

Value propositions are external-facing while mission statements are used internally at a company. While your mission statement can inspire and help shape your value proposition (and vice versa), they both have different purposes. 

A mission statement is a formal summary of your business’s goals, aims and objectives while a value prop is a formal statement targeting your customers. In short, a mission statement is objective-oriented while a value proposition is more product/service and customer-focused. 

To highlight the differences, see Apple’s value proposition and mission statement:

• Value proposition example: “Looks brand new. Feels like home.”
• Mission statement example: “To bring the best user experience to its customers through innovative hardware, software, and services.”

Our business value proposition template includes everything you need to consider to help you create the perfect value proposition. This includes dedicated sections that allow you to note down key details and information about your products and services, your competitors and your customers.  

Our value proposition statement template is broken down into five core areas:

1. What’s great about you? (Product/service details)
2. What do others have to offer? (Competitor information)
3. What are your customer pains and gains? (Customer insights)
4. Why should they choose you? (USPs & problem-solving)
5. Value proposition statement template (ad-lib value proposition template with examples)

Creating a value proposition for your business is a great way to visualise, design, and test how you can create value for customers. It’s something that should excite your customers and convince them to purchase your products/services over that of your competitors.

Value propositions are a great way to present and test the value of your business idea with customers. This allows you to see how popular your business idea is before you go through the effort of bringing it to life. 

Having a strong value proposition can:

• Provide you with a better understanding of your customer’s gains and pains
• Highlight the unique value your business provides by differentiating you from your competitors
• Help spread a consistent message across your brand
• Support your sales and marketing efforts
• Improve lead generation and customer engagement

Writing an effective value proposition statement is essential to engaging potential customers. It should also help you better define your products/services and how they’re superior to your competitors. To help you create a compelling value prop that’s sure to excite, here are a few useful tips: 

• Keep it short, sweet and simple
• Be clear, concise and compelling
• Always think about your target audience and their problems/needs
• Refer to your tagline, positioning or mission statement for inspiration
• Use simple and clear language
• Avoid the use of jargon and superlatives 
• Highlight the benefits rather than the features

To find out more about how to write a great value proposition and to make the most out of our template, read our article, Startup Value Proposition: How to Write One In Five Simple Steps.