Where is
value next?
We are a team of dedicated people helping you change the way you work, to enhance growth and be super relevant to your customers.
Six things we won't compromise
Culture is a business model too. These are the six values we refuse to trade, whatever the project.
High performance
We do not settle for 'good enough' and aim for the best results for our clients.
Founder's mentality
Every day is 'day-1' at BMI, a philosophy that drives us to action and innovation.
Entrepreneurial mindset
We always see the world positively. Every challenge is an opportunity to grow.
1 + 1 = 3
We break down traditional silos and combine our strengths to create synergy.
Open communication
We believe in a culture of openness to create a healthy environment for growth.
Value driven
We prioritize creating value over financial growth, internally and for our clients.
Born from a question nobody could answer.
Every great company began as a question somebody refused to stop asking. Ours arrived in 2010, when Patrick van der Pijl kept watching the same scene repeat itself. Smart companies, full of capable people, paying the world's biggest firms for strategy they could not execute. The decks were beautiful. Nothing moved. The problem was never intelligence. It was method.
So Patrick built a new one. He took the creative discipline designers use to invent things and welded it to the rigor executives need to trust things. Customer-centric, visual, lean and iterative. The blend became a new discipline called business design, and Business Models Inc. became one of the first agencies on earth to practice it.
Then we did what the big firms would never do. We gave the method away. "Business Model Generation" reached more than five million readers, and USA Today named it one of the twelve best business books ever written. "Design a Better Business" and "Business Model Shifts" followed. Today our tools are taught in universities and used inside the very consultancies we compete with. We consider that the highest compliment available.
That giving-away is not generosity. It is the whole philosophy. Traditional consulting is built to be needed again. We are built to make ourselves unnecessary. We work alongside your people until the method lives in their hands, because we help people help themselves. What began as one person with a question is now 20+ strategists, business designers and creatives across Amsterdam, Taipei and Shenzhen, with more than 300 clients behind us and one unchanged ambition. Businesses built for where value is next.
A category of one
Comparison needs a category, and we invented ours. Agencies make things look right. Consultancies tell you what is right. We are the third thing. We build the ability to grow into your company itself, and nobody else does that the way we do.
The usual way
- Sells you answers
- Strategy arrives as a slide deck
- The expertise leaves when they do
- Built to be needed again next year
- Success is measured in hours billed
The BMI way
- Builds your ability to answer
- Strategy leaves as a tested, working business model
- The method stays in your team's hands
- Built to make itself unnecessary
- Ships working products, not just plans
- Success is measured in capability left behind
One road, nine stops.
Every engagement travels the same road, from the first honest look at your market to a product your customers use and your team runs. This is that road. Nine stages, one continuous journey, and it is why nothing we make gets lost between a strategy and its execution. Strategy firms stop after the deck. Software agencies start at the code. We run the whole road, and most clients board somewhere in the middle. Wherever you get on, it ends with your team driving.
01Discover
We map where value is moving in your market and name the opportunity worth chasing. A shared picture beats a hundred opinions.
02Strategy
The business case, the model and the bet, made explicit. This is where we decide what would have to be true.
03Design
Business models, propositions and experiences designed around the customer, with your team at the table.
04Prototype
Rough on purpose. Ideas become something a real customer can react to within days, not quarters.
05Build
Designers and engineers make it real. AI products, platforms and apps, with working software shipping every week.
06Test
Evidence over enthusiasm. We validate with real users until the data says go, pivot or stop.
07Launch
Deployment, training and adoption. The product meets its customers, and your team meets its product.
08Scale
What works gets the fuel. Playbooks, capability building and growth loops that compound.
09Optimize
Monitor, improve, repeat. By now it is your team running the road, which was the destination all along.
The road is real. The only question is where you get on.
Pick your stop→Fifteen years, one question
The story so far, compressed into eight moments that explain who we are.
The question
Patrick van der Pijl founds Business Models Inc. in Amsterdam, one of the first business design agencies in the world.
The book
"Business Model Generation" is published and goes on to reach 5M+ readers. USA Today names it one of the 12 best business books ever.
Design a Better Business
The second bestseller turns the method into a toolkit used in boardrooms and universities worldwide.
Design Pioneer Award
Good Design Australia recognizes BMI for pioneering the discipline of business design.
Business Model Shifts
The third book maps six shifts toward business models that create new kinds of value.
Social Impact award
The Housing Action Lab in Brisbane wins the Social Impact award, proof the method moves more than markets.
Official Miro partner
BMI becomes an official partner of the world's leading visual workspace, 100M+ users strong.
Three continents, one team
20+ creative spirits in Amsterdam, Taipei and Shenzhen, 300+ clients, and the same question we started with. Where is value next?
We design businesses that stay ahead of change.
Meet the team→The shape of BMI today, in the numbers that matter to us.
We practice what we teach, with partners who share the philosophy. We keep that list short on purpose.
Meet our partners→Looking for extrabrainpower?
Explore the possibilities with Patrick van der Pijl and the BMI team. Every big shift starts with a conversation.