On December 9, 2025, our CEO Tetsuro Kondo led a business seminar at the Niigata IPC Foundation (Niigata City Industrial Promotion Foundation).

The seminar was titled "Hands-on workshop: Business Model 3.0 — How to think through the business models the coming era calls for, using diagrams." It was a free session for people thinking about starting a company or a new business, and for people who want to review their current business. Capacity was 30, and registration had already closed two weeks before the day.

What we did

The four hours, from 13:00 to 17:00, alternated between two lectures and two exercises.

The timetable for the day: lecture 1, exercise 1, lecture 2, exercise 2, sharing time, and Q&A

  • Lecture 1: "Grasping a business model as a structure" — how to read and draw a Bizgram, which shows a business model in a 3×3 grid, using a real service as the example
  • Exercise 1: "Try diagramming a business model" — each participant drew a business they are involved in on a Bizgram sheet
  • Lecture 2: "Grasping how business models change" — how business models have changed, explained through cases
  • Exercise 2: "Change your business model" — using the diagram they had drawn, participants considered how to change their own business
  • Sharing and Q&A — participants showed their diagrams in pairs and groups, then shared with the whole room. Every participant spoke about what they took away

From the lecture slides

We began from the idea that business models are hard to discuss in words alone, so we turn them into diagrams to make conversation easier.

The slide "Why diagram a business model?", setting an exchange in words alone beside an exchange with a diagram in between

A Bizgram places actors and arrows in nine cells: three rows (users, the business, and operators) by three columns. Limiting the cells strips away information and leaves only the essentials.

The slide "A Bizgram follows a 3×3 rule"

An example Bizgram of how a music streaming service works, showing the flows of money and services across the three rows

This was the first time we spoke about the content of "Business Model 3.0" in public. "Business Model 3.0 Visual Guide" went on sale afterward, in January 2026.

Event details