Communicate well to win half the battle

All good startup founders communicate their core idea coherently and passionately. It is also the hardest thing to get right because you are communicating against the norm. In my startup journey, for too long I confused great communication with a great investor deck or an elevator pitch. But I did not startup because I had a great pitch. I started up because I believed that SaaS tools are changing how people talk about and do work, and that a communication platform built on top of this behavior will unlock an additional gear of productivity. And yet only very rarely did I communicate the entirety of my thought across.

My biggest learning is to always communicate the full idea, however irrational or abstract it might seem. Too often I found myself repeating generalities without going into the all aspects of the core idea. There was a distinct fear of not being understood — with its obvious concomitant outcomes. Nothing could have been worse. It was frustrating because I felt I was trying to describe the elephant by only its trunk or its tail. It was boring for the listeners because there was nothing new. In retrospect, the idea different from the ease with it is communicated. The later only comes after failing a hundred times. But if your words do not cover the whole, even a thousand falls won’t make it better.

I also soon realized that there was no fixed template. I started with a Customer > Problem > MY SOLUTION > Nirvana formula and went through a series of meetings with glassed out eyes. The key part in your communication is generating anticipation, where the solution seems almost within reach and when you unveil it, the puzzle just falls into place. Yes, everyone wants to know who your customer is but spelling it out is like turning Anna Karenina into an Indian daily soap. Ditto on why X will not kill you? Or how you will make money?

The other trap I occasionally fell into was communicating without considering the question being asked. Every conversation has an implicit (and sometimes explicit) question. Customers are asking why they should stake their time, reputation, and in B2B products, their careers on you. Potential team members are asking why they should dedicate the next few years of their lives to this idea, and why should they do it with you. Investors are asking if the market is large and forgiving enough, and why you are right team for it. While there are common elements, there is no single elevator pitch for all of these questions.

Over hundreds of conversations here are few pointers I will keep in mind for the future:

1. Build the conversation around my strongest card. It could be adoption and engagement metrics, the cool tech behind the product, or the collective expertise of the team. The story will follow my strengths, and not vice versa.
2. The centerpiece would be something tangible — number of users, revenue growth rate, engagement metrics for the product, the number of years of domain knowledge. No one listens to only an idea. Also the core story won’t change unless this centerpiece changes. The corollary to this not to communicate too early i.e. without anything tangible.
3. Cut out the “wills”. The product we will build. The customers we will acquire. The sales we will close. The team we will build. If the story is coherent, “the wills” are evident.
4. No story-surgery after every conversation. There is some randomness in what works for different people, so waiting for a few conversations before you get the red marker and the cutting boards is the only way to not go in circles.
5. Keep a record of every conversation? What went right (and wrong)? When did listener’s attention start flagging? Where was the listener piqued?

And if you want to see one piece of great communication read Stewart Butterfield introducing Slack to the world .