This paper presents a study of how qualitative ethnographic data contributes to sustainable business model innovation. It draws on empirical examples from an interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder workshop in the context of a research project concerning the design of an open services platform for sustainable multimodal mobility. Of particular interest here is how complexity—addressed through qualitative ethnographic data—is translated in a business modelling context. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations to better enable the uptake of complexity for business model innovation in multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary project teams.