Why business models, not ideas, decide who wins

CHALLENGING a central assumption of startup culture, Swiss business theorist Alexander Osterwalder in Colombo argued recently that companies were not built on great ideas or products alone, but through the frameworks that make them work.

- By Divya THOTAWATTE

Swiss business theorist Alexander Osterwalder conducting 'Beyond the Business Model Canvas' masterclass - Pic by Upul Abayasekara

(Upul Abayasekara)

This discussion with Osterwalder, the creator of the globally-adopted Business Model Canvas, took place at ‘Beyond the Business Model Canvas’, a masterclass held as part of the TiECon Sri Lanka 2026 event program. TiECon Sri Lanka 2026 marked the first flagship global entrepreneurship summit to be hosted in the country.

The session focused on going beyond frameworks to equip today’s business and industry leaders with clear, practical thinking tools for better strategic decision-making. Designed to help navigate uncertainty, build resilient organisations, and drive sustainable growth, it drew founders, CEOs, CXOs, and senior decision-makers of companies.

Addressing them, Osterwalder explained that for a business, what mattered more than ideas was a business model that turned those ideas into repeatable, defensible value. He discussed how startups, scale-ups, and global corporations could reduce uncertainty, create lock-in, and build something that could not easily be copied by competitors.

“Everything starts with an idea, and we tend to overemphasise the idea. Ideas are easy. What's hard is to take an idea to find out what value propositions customers care about, and what business model can scale,” Osterwalder said.

He described company-building as a journey that moves from search to scale, a process he called “explore” and “exploit”. Startups must first explore by testing assumptions, learning quickly, and iterating based on customer feedback. Only later would it make sense to shift into execution, planning, and optimisation.