Startup pitches need explicit differentiation
Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard, read, and watched a ton of startups give pitches. Recently, I started a consulting company called Devs’ Devs (developers for developers) and went to Kairos Society event in NYC. It’s awesome watching the explosive growth of startup founders around the country and the huge interest in entrepreneurship. But the biggest problem is most pitches suck! They suck for a ton of reasons, but the biggest one that sticks out to me: NO EXPLICIT DIFFERENTIATION!
This problem occurs at every business school. I’m convinced they relearn English and are provided buzzword dictionaries for reference. For example, instead of saying “we are creating a company that allows people to create their own X and sell those to others” they say “we are a crowdsourcing and e-commerce platform for user-generated X” Thankfully I translate MBS (Mostly BullShit) and have been able to dig through all the shit and get to the point. However, it seems that even though MBA students and their disciplies learn about all kinds of techniques to differentiate competitively, they fail to exercise these concepts when telling someone their story. Actually they make it sound as bland, boring, and banal as possible. It’s almost as if they hide under shit so no one will sniff out the details. They turn their story into a predictable investor deck so that it’s easier to raise money. Fuck that noise! Entrepreneurs need to be the ones that break rules, throw out convential wisdom, and have investors chase them*!
Your pitch is your story! You are talking about why you’ll revolutionize the world, change the course of history, make people live better lives, destroy status quo in the industry, etc. Even if you have smaller ambitions, talk about the story. Why are you working ridiculous hours, staying up late, working for yourself for a shitty idea that may die in infancy? Why do you care for this to exist, people live their lives without it existing?
As an entrepreneur, focus on the explicit differentiation of your business. Talk about what drove you the insane side of startups and why you’re the one to pursue this opportunity for mankind. Appear to be sane but talk about why you’re driven to succeed for this particular idea. Furthermore emphasize the clear execution you’re developing and why you see it working. Finally close out with numbers and now you have a unique pitch. If you take nothing else, keep this in mind: STOP HIDING BEHIND BULLSHIT, THINK DIFFERENT!
*Note: Obviously, investors are important in startup land, and it’s nearly impossible having them chase you….blah blah blah. Go big or go home! You’re an entrepreneur so own it and if you do have to chase make sure you do it in style. Make sure you own every presentation and the investors share the story of meeting you the first day. Ask any investor who met Steve Jobs, Seth Priebatsch, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin & Larry Page, etc. They all had weird eccentries that made them rise to the top, even the ones that rejected them remember the first day they met them (they would have to figure it out when they have to explain why they didn’t invest).
