What are Channels in a Lean Canvas?

Definition

Channels are specific paths customers travel to discover, evaluate, buy, and use your product, including free channels like SEO and paid channels like Google Ads.

Why it matters

A brilliant product with no channel is a secret. Channels often kill startups faster than the product itself - unit economics fail because CAC on one channel is too high, and founders discover this only after burning their runway. Peter Thiel's advice in Zero to One: pick one channel and master it before touching a second. Trying five channels at once means five half-funnels leaking leads and zero data to learn from.

How it applies

A solopreneur launching an ebook on Notion templates for freelancers writes: (1) Twitter thread once a week on pricing and client horror stories, tagged to link to landing page, (2) guest post on three newsletters in the productivity space, (3) Product Hunt launch in month 2 with 30 testers pre-warmed. Three channels, each one measurable, each one owned by a specific person with a specific cadence. When week 6 comes and Twitter delivers 80% of signups, the founder doubles down there instead of scattering budget.

Common mistakes

• Writing "social media" as a channel - this is a category, not a channel.
• Relying only on paid ads without a free channel, so CAC is fragile from day one.
• Ignoring retention channels (email, in-app notifications) and only planning for acquisition.
• Testing five channels with small budgets instead of one channel with a real budget.